Immigration, a lexicon. You're a 'migrant' when you're very poor; 'immigrant' when you're not so poor; and 'expat' when you're rich.

Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the present.

In some ways, I think it's the closest that we come to the truth — is in the form of fiction.

The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave things one did not ask for.

A name is precious; it carries inside it a language, a history, a set of traditions, a particular way of looking at the world. Losing it meant losing my ties to all those things too.

Thing that was very different for me is that an American child's reading is filled with Americans.

No one wrote better about the sin of pride, the corruption of power and the redemption of love. I will miss you, Gabriel García Márquez.

There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an ability to make you feel that he is writing for you alone.

I began reading in French. I didn't read in English until high school.

There is a insularity within American fiction even for adults. It's very tough for books in translation in the US.

I love James Baldwin essays, but also his novels. I recently read "Another Country." I couldn't believe how ahead of his time he was.

I think when people talk about improvising it turns into this silly thing like, "Oh there's like a hula hoop there and I'm like 'Oh what's going on here? Is this a really big ring?'"

He [Ma's Tooth] was part of her a minute ago but now he's not. Just a thing.

We are thrown back on the text, for the most part. Archaeology can give us background. It doesn't either confirm or disprove the Bible, but it may illuminate it.

News is history shot on the wing. The huntsmen from the Fourth Estate seek to bag only the peacock or the eagle of the swifting day.

An excess of hoarded wealth is the death of many.

We are lucky to live in an age in which we are still making discoveries.

it is in the oral traditions of the villages that the arts of India are really alive. The brief Western immortality of museums is pointless to people who have seen eternity in their earth.

This love was tricky...was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire?

Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life.

The Islamic State is dangerous, a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic is even more so.