I'm from Chicago, so the Chicago working-class poets still mean a great deal to me.

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.

I think music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.

One of my biggest complaints about adulthood is that it's difficult to simply hang out with friends

To see the ball, to run after it, makes me the happiest man in the world

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

I have a natural right to do whatever I want with my body as long as it doesn't affect anybody else or any other property.

I do try to be of some use in the world. I sometimes do volunteer work with kids, and manage to help some people a little, but really making a significant difference can be hard.

I became a player who goes to a lot of effort while training, who can rely on his will and his mental strengths.

In therapy, I see myself in the mirror differently.

For years, I just did not like this idea of God, church.

I think my acceleration is very good. That's the key for me.