I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti.

All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.

Love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you're not careful it will drown you.

Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.

There is a frustration too, that at moments when there's not a coup, when there are not people in the streets, that the country disappears from people's consciousness.

When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.

It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.

People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.

I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when it’s at its extreme. And that’s what they end up knowing about it.

Toni Cade Bambara said: “Writing is the way I participate in the struggle.”

Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.

The world will not get better, only we get and grow better.

Personal emotions should be carefully monitored. Emotional ties are to be exploited but never felt.

Persevere. Nothing worthwhile is easy.

I was the lead in two musicals, and I took dance classes.

It is better to watch things then to do them.

More than anything, acting helped me discover who I'm not. I've learned that I'm a girly girl, but not a prissy girl.

To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse. The only way to make them good is to be good, remembering well the beam and the mote.

Cry when you get a Golden Globe. Then you can get an Oscar nomination.

Perhaps if one really knew when one was happy one would know the things that were necessary in one's life.

Fashion anticipates ... elegance is a state of mind.