There [DreamTigers by Jorge Luis Borges] were these little fablesque things, you know, dream tigers, beautiful, beautiful pieces that when you read them had the power of a long piece, but they were prose, and they had the power of poetry, in that the last line wasn't the end, it was a reverberation, like when you tap on a glass made of crystal, and it goes ping.

My book would come out in one language, then it would come out in another language, then it would come out in One City, One Read, and I was always being called away from my desk.

It's so good for your health to take those naps. I don't know why people brag that they sleep five hours. I'd be ashamed. I'm proud that I sleep nine hours.

My idea of a meal, if I was hungry, was to open a bag of potato chips.

I lose things. I write things and they disappear from my desk, my life. I move a lot. I wanted to gather them and put them under one roof, under one cover, so I could document my life in a series of snapshots.

When I was a child, I was very shy, and there's still a part of me that's very shy.

I realize that it's like spices in the kitchen. I need that turmeric. I'm sorry, but cinnamon isn't going to substitute . I feel that I can teach my listener about a new word they can use too. "Well, what words are part of my own community, even if I'm monolingual, that I'm not allowing myself to use in a public sphere?"