“It’s bad enough . . . when a country gets colonized, but when the people do as well! That’s the end, really, that’s the end.”

“You can’t dread what you can’t experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. That’s as bad as it gets. And that’s bad enough, surely.”

“When you’re as charming and physically attractive as myself, it’s easy enough to win over people you meet. But getting strangers to love you...now, that’s the trick.”

“The good times and the bad times both will pass. It will pass. It will get easier. But the fact that it will get easier does not mean that it doesn’t hurt now. And when people try to minimize your pain they are doing you a disservice. And when you try to minimize your own pain you’re doing yourself a disservice. Don’t do that. The truth is that it hurts because it’s real. It hurts because it mattered. And that’s an important thing to acknowledge to yourself. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t end, that it won’t get better. Because it will.”

“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.”

“when I get to the end of what I’m saying, I have to believe in my having said it, that’s often all that’s needed just as water, flour, and yeast make bread.”