There's one thing I know for sure: When I'm most opinionated, my writing sucks.

The room is the most important thing about recording.

Change is the one thing we can be sure of.

Illness transforms the things you most fear into the things you crave and would hold onto if you could.

My earnestness at the injustices I witnessed when I was writing 'Random Family' may have been my gravest reportorial offense during the early years of reporting. When I discuss the book with students, they often ask me how I could 'stand by' in the face of so much suffering; the egregiousness wasn't my powerlessness but my surprise.

It's hard for me to understand how poverty can be invisible to so many people, since I see it everywhere. Readers sometimes think this world is so different; on the one hand, they feel connected to the people I'm writing about, and on the other hand, they're saying their lives are a world away.