I'm an artist, I'm not an academic folklorist.

We’re all misfits herefrom our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions. From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.

What I find interesting about folklore is the dialogue it gives us with storytellers from centuries past.

In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

I'm also looking for gems that the average reader might have missed.

Happiness is a talent like any other. It's another art form. Some people are good at it, some people aren't.

The fairy tale journey may look like an outward trek across plains and mountains, through castles and forests, but the actual movement is inward, into the lands of the soul.

I'd had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.

Magic Realism is not new. The label's new, the specific Latin American form of it is new, its modern popularity is new, but it's been around as long as literature has been around.

There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book. (…) A good novel editor is invisible.

We've always lived in dark times. There has always been a range of human experience from the sublime to the brutal, and stories reflect it. It's no less brutal now; each age has its horrors.

I write about love all the time, what a tragedy those stories turn into.

I'm a geeky toy collector, and to have toys of your own characters is unbelievably cool.

"I'm going over the valley." (Dying from throat cancer, his doctor found him wandering around his room, asked him where was he going?)

In addition the bill would expand an existing law "conscience clause" that protects physician training programs that refuse to provide training for abortion procedures.

My father would invite me sweetly to come and sit on a stool at his feet, and, as I let myself trustingly down, he would gently kick the seat from under me - and laugh.

I write the story that nobody reads. Someday, I'm going to write it in German to see if anyone notices.

The home run became glorified with Babe Ruth. Starting with him, batters have been thinking in terms of how far they could hit the ball, not how often.

Above all things, and at all times, practice yourself in good humor.

Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich.

My God, my higher power. It's mine and mine alone. I create my connection and I decide how my connection is going to be.