“I was very young, and those events affected me deeply. I feel the time given to me doesn't belong only to me. In everything – my writing, my travelling, my happiness – I live partly on behalf of those who weren't able to survive. I feel I'm living their share of life.”

“All I want to be is very young always and very irresponsible and to feel that my life is my own-to live and be happy and die in my own way to please myself”

“My association is so painfully close that avoidance is the only way I know to retain my identity. It's ridiculous and embarrassing. I hate feeling this way, because it forces me to see how deeply racism has affected me.”

“Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.”

“My eyes are so bleary
I guess I'm young but I feel so weary
I've tried to express it
But I think its all a bore
Its at the heart of me,
A very part of me”

“My motivation is that inner driving force within me to share my music with the world. I want to get my music out there so I can inspire people just as I have been inspired through music. Music makes you feel; whether it’s happy, sad, or a million different emotions which come to mind, music can invoke those feelings. That’s inspiration to me. ”

“I would keep writing even without the eventual possibility of glory. Really, with writing, the idea that I was going to be able to support myself was a long shot. I’m living off my writing now, without grants or a part time job, and it feels so tenuous. It could go downhill tomorrow, you know? I was writing before I thought it was even a real possibility to support myself with my writing, and I’ll keep writing after it becomes clear that it isn’t a real possibility after all. Not because I “must write” or because it’s “in my blood” or anything poetic like that. Or maybe those are just fancy ways of describing this certainty I have that all of my worth is wrapped up in my writing. From very young it seemed to me that writing was the only thing I did that was worthwhile. That had a chance of lasting. So, my work is something I have always given priority. The rest of my life can be falling apart, and it often seems to be, and I still take the time to work on the comic, or short stories. I am always moving forward with my writing. In a way I do treat everything else as a support system for the writing, but it isn’t really. And by treating it that way, I tend to neglect it.”

“I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.”

“The theme of displacement is very natural for me. It always comes up in my books because I have been a foreigner all my life and I don’t feel I belong anywhere. I’m an immigrant.”

“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”