The VW doesn’t make you think of Hitler and genocide. It’s a breast on wheels, a puffy little dream.

The desire for love is universal but that has never meant it’s worthy of respect. It’s not admirable to want love, it just is.

I don't really see art as structured by logic.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

Since it's fiction, the book resonates, at least for me, on various levels, some of which intimate ideas about history but none of which have the kind of directly causal reasoning you cite.

At a certain age just being around particular people is an event.

People are complicated. Personally I don't go in for puritanical people.