I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?

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.

Don’t try to be just a success

An escape can become escapism before we even know it. Books are wonderful things, but you can't live in someone else's story. You have to live your own story.

When rewards come from an external source instead of an internal source, they’re unreliable, which means they’re dangerous if you grow to depend on them.

You don't achieve greatness in life being surrounded by mediocre people with mediocre values. Choose your company wisely.

I guess I'm just fiercely independent.

When the whistle blew and the call stretched thin across the night, one had to believe that any journey could be sweet to the soul.

Identity is not inherent. It is shaped by circumstance and sensitivity and resistance to self-pity.

We learn to beat fear by doing.

Politics, glamor, fame - they're all mixed up together, and they always have been.

Sometimes we overemphasize the political system. There are other ways to make a difference. There's technology, there's media, there's business.