I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

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.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

He thought, I got wings on my eyes, and the thought was so odd and yet so pleasing to him that he felt suddenly that he was immensely special, that there could be no one like him in the world.

I'm an angry person, angrier than most people would imagine, I get flashes of anger. What works for me is working out when it's useful to use that anger.

It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce.

Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?

Agendas in general don't work. The agenda is a thing that is perpetually destroyed. But through that destruction, something really interesting comes up.

Yielding, like ice about to melt.

Music never goes away. It is always available, but we're not always available for music.

O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements.