“It took me 10 years to write a story that pleased me – that I could look at after it was published and not cringe.”

From about the age of 15 or 16 I’d had the notion that I wanted to write fiction, and I’d done enough in college to satisfy myself that I had a knack for it – I wouldn’t call it “talent” – though I wondered if I’d ever have the guts to actually commit to it.

I got brilliant stories from people who’d never set foot in an MFA program and had published very little, and terrible stories from people who’d published a lot and had all the credentials. It was all over the map and that was part of the fun.

If you want to write, then write; if you don’t want to write, then don’t write. I fell into the former category, and I just made the decision that I’d keep on because I liked it and might someday do something decent.

At a certain point I decided to keep on because I felt like the work was getting better, and I was taking great pleasure in that.

I kept going back while I was writing the novel – which never sold, may it rest in peace – and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away.

Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.

Haiti is unique – the first successful slave revolt in history, the first black republic etc., and then when you get into the culture, the voodoo, and that wonderful synchretization of Christian and African belief and symbology, it’s like nothing the world has ever seen.

It’s amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.

Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.

The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.

I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly – for about six hours – considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write.

I started publishing stories in small magazines early on, but after seven or eight or nine years you feel like you need a little more than that to show for your efforts.

I think if you spend much time dwelling on influence you can get self-conscious about every line you write. That’s a great way to freeze up.

I thought when I started writing that I’d have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.

I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.

Maybe the light’s at the other end of the tunnel.

My country and me, we are part of this region, we’re not separated. We cannot discuss it as Syria or as me ; it should be as part, as a whole, as comprehensive. That’s how we have to look at it.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting – you look for the behaviour that’s not the one you expect.

Well, wolves will pretty rarely hunt. You’re vulnerable if you’re on your own or injured. But for lone wolves, get up high, show them that you’re not injured, face ’em off, be authoritarian with it, and look ’em in the eye.

I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.

Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look for the future.

You look at [terrorists] faces, they look foreigners, but where are they coming from ? How precise this estimate is difficult to tell, but definitely the majority are Al-Qaeda.

Look, we’re all saddled with things that make us better or worse. This world is a crazy place, and I’ve chosen to make my work about that insanity.

The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.