I never called myself a writer because it seemed so pretentious - a writer was what somebody else called you, a title bestowed.

Every new refugee to a society, whether it's the United States or some other place, is subjected to fear. They are the new outsider population, the new other.

In the United States, the immigrant experience occupies a very central place in American mythology. And sometimes, that place wavers between acceptance and rejection.

Immigrants, as troubling as they are to some people, are an integral part of what the American Dream is supposed to be. They're understandable to a considerable number of Americans.

People might like to think a war is done when a cease fire is signed, but for most people who lived through a war it goes on for decades.

Writers from the majority can assume their audiences know what they're talking about - they don't have to explain things, whereas minority writers are expected to.

My identity is deeply intertwined with being a refugee because that's the first experience that I remember.

I've never stopped being a refugee.

Hollywood in many ways serves as the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the United States.

If you're a so-called minority writer, the temptation is to write for the majority... I refuse to do that.

No one wants for their child to become a refugee. It's an awful experience.

It has been my personal experience that as I allow the painting to speak I become lost, it is delicious and at the same time frightening. The best ones, to me, have a life of their own.

Hope is what keeps the soul alive.

we are destroyed or uplifted by what they hear instantly or cumulatively

The only cure for seasickness is to sit on the shady side of an old church in the country.

It doesn't take a lot of strength to hang on. It takes a lot of strength to let go.

Only a heathen would bring a gun to a sword fight.' And only a moron would bring a sword to a gunfight.

I am comfortable knowing that I put my heart and soul into the presidency.

A Drop of the Ocean is still the Ocean.

We did a few things worth remembering, and I wish for someone to remember them.

I used to sit when I was a kid, from 14 or 15 on, with a book or a paper or a magazine in front of a mirror and teach myself to speak with a more straight mouth, so it wasn't so pronounced.