I don't deny people their fantasy life, but I do think that we desperately need to start realizing just how complicated our reality is in America. Sitcoms just don't show us that.

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.

Where everyone wants to be a leader, it makes one a follower to want to be a leader, and a leader to know what to follow.

My life is quite a blissful adventure because my thoughts are constantly working in my favor. I hope yours are not working against you?

Stories have a job to do. They can't just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.

The nicest thing about creating ideas is that even when you finish your travelling, they continue their journey!

Dominance is a burden. Most men who are honest will admit that.

Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life

It pains me whenever there's the death of a law enforcement official.

Exploit a subject or a theme to its greatest potential by bringing all possible reference to bear - then put aside the reference and create again using the potential of your unfettered imagination.

All I could think of when I got a look at the place from the outside was what fun it would be to stand out there and watch it burn down.

All personal achievement starts in the mind of the individual. Your personal achievement starts in your mind. The first step is to know exactly what your problem, goal or desire is.