Don't be afraid to say what you don't know, and speak for what you do know. Say, "I can't speak for all Latinas, but I can speak for me and tell you very, very honestly."

I've put up with too much, too long, and now I'm just too intelligent, too powerful, too beautiful, too sure of who I am finally to deserve anything less.

I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin.

My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.

You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.

The beauty of literature is you allow readers to see things through other peoples eyes. All good books do this.

'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves.

If you know two cultures and two languages, that intermediate place, where the two don't perfectly meet, is really interesting.

People know when you're speaking from el corazón. You have that pain. Take that pain and do something with it. That's very powerful.

The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.

You don't want somebody who doesn't know his own heart, do you? You'll find someone who's brave enough to love you. Someday. One day. Not today.

He'd watched the world change around him, civilizations rise and fall, and although he could have anything, anyone, he wanted her.

When people get into their 30s plus "boyfriend" sounds weird...if you really think about it. Instead, I think we should universally start using the term "manfriend" or "snookie bookie cuddles pie".

Film 'This Changes Everything' is not a sad story. It's not a slit-your-wrists climate film. It's a story about people who are making change happen.

I gradually stopped wondering, ‘What life do I have?' and began to consider, ‘What life can I build?

The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower.

Chaos is perhaps at the bottom of everything.

Religion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.

I can't think of anybody worse to live with.

Often, warriors find their lives meaningless.

In 1996, I was in was in an acoustic kind of rock band, we were called Feeble. We were just playing locally.