For me, what I've always seen in writers and artists is the courage it takes to make an original work of art. I think the real risks in literature are linguistic and intellectual, and I hope we can highlight those, as well as political courage.

[My work] is a love song to our mongrel selves.

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.

Home has become such a scattered, damaged, various concept in our present travails. There is so much to yearn for. There are so few rainbows any more.

All names mean something.

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now.

American literature has always been immigrant.