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.

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.

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

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.

And this way, l'll leave everything behind before it gets the chance to do the same to me.

Pent-up anger is oftentimes more destructive than a good quarrel.

Sometimes the best way to uncover a new goal or dream is to step back, make space, and allow what's next to find you.

I always think the novelist should go to the culture's dark places and poke around. Pose a lot of hard questions.

What the church is really concerned about is what endures.

There were mysterious questions, but a mysterious answer was a contradiction in terms.

The reality is that it's harder to recruit pediatric subspecialists if you're not recruiting them for a children's hospital.

You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.

Accomplish something every day of your life.

Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.