How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb: "Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant... God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life

among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.

God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us