I never paid attention when people said, "That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction," except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.

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.

Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.

To create one's own world in any of the arts takes courage.

Teaching is a very habit-bound endeavor. We're unsettled by the unfamiliar. We're creatures of habit too.

This is the democratic process at work, What you're seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

I think living in Israel and wanting to change reality is the best prescription for never-ending writer's block.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

No one could make a choice without feeling afraid.

DNA ties us all together; we share ancestry with barracuda and bacteria and mushrooms, if you go far enough back.

I get a real kick out of it, seeing people wear my designs.