Henry Ford didn't just create a cheap way of getting away from your in-laws; he basically understood that there was something in us as a culture that wanted to be on the move, that wanted to get out.

So many of my friends tell me they’re not religious. I’m like, Of course you’re religious. You watch Oprah Winfrey, don’t you?

But America isn't a country of family values; Mexico is a country of family values. This is a country of people who leave home.

Education is that human process of feeling your body mature, feeding your mind with ideas that it never had before, or information you never had. You simply cannot do that on a computer.

There are things so deeply personal that they can be revealed only to strangers.

A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student.

But one does not forget by trying to forget. One only remembers.

I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.

Language is a social event.

You don't know Mexico, man. You have trivialized Mexico. You are a fool about Mexico if you think that Mexico is five blocks. That is not Mexico; that is some crude Americanism you have absorbed.

Now we have this idea that, not only do you go to first grade to learn your family's language, but you go to a university to learn about the person you were before you left home.

Movement is knowledge. Art is perception

If, however, I am allowed to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be the means—it may put me on my guard—at least, it may be something to live for.

I hear, "Yes, Let us more education invest!"Whilst destitute, Outside their gates doth rest, Women, children, and men, Poor and a hungered!Odd that colleges fill, Yet mercy is numbered.

Hollywood is a very strong machine that needs, and in... especially with female actors, fresh flesh. It's that cruel. But that's the way it is.

I'm felt I was writing about love and desire and community and belonging and grief and a whole host of other issues. But race is never far from the surface.

The people that hurt you are the ones you love because you are the most open to them.

The feminist movement as at present instituted is Inadequate.

I believe that if we are going to write about life and death, we should not do it from the cheap seats.

It has not been an easy cross to bear. It has caused considerable confusion. My husband constantly complained about the awkwardness of being married to a woman whom he called Sister.

Oh sure, I have a few black people in my family tree. They're probably still hanging there.