I was very lucky. I don't know German, or Dutch, or Chinese, or Thai. I don't know them, so I can't judge, so I have to go on the word of the publisher that it's a good translation.

Like all guests, after a fortnight, grief is best beyond the door.

It's what's available to the poor communities. They do buy healthy stuff, you know, but the lettuce is usually iceberg lettuce and to get any taste, they have to use all that ranch dressing.

If you know two cultures and two languages, that intermediate place, where the two don't perfectly meet, is really interesting.

I have to take care of the house, and the dogs, and the Macondo Board meetings, all those e-mails, the letters that are going to fans. And you've got to pay bills. These things eat up your time. You have to prepare and pack to go on that trip. Then when you come back you have to file all that stuff, answer all that mail, and that's not even washing the clothes or any of that. So it takes as many days as I've been away to come back to normal and to get quiet.

The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.

If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.