I would hate for people to generalize about every Haitian from something that one Haitian did, or a group of Haitians did.

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.

One of the happiest days of my life was when I quit waiting for "happily-ever-after" to come find me and proclaimed joy in the just now season of life. And the next season. And the next.

The authority of those who profess to teach is often a positive hindrance to those who desire to learn.

When you write, you're supposed to go stand somewhere else for a while, see things from a perspective that's not in line with your own reflexive truths.

We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy.

Allo, darlin’. Oi’m so glad to see it’s love at first sight for you, too.

Of course I wanted to know. I was a writer. I wanted to know everything.

That's why I like the scenes where we're just in the kitchen having breakfast, because it's the interaction between people. The chaos.

The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed.

God has more for you in your future than you could ever dream of in your present and he's already seen you in it.

The shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing.