I’ve never been able to write directly about things that happen to me. I need to deform them in ways to make them strange to me…. If I’m playing the court stenographer, then there isn’t going to be room for play, and if there is no room for play the work sits on the page lifeless. It’s during the play that I come up with all the weird connections, when my subtle structures come to life, when what’s best about the book starts to unfold.

JUNOT DÍAZ