I usually say Latina, Mexican-American or American Mexican, and in certain contexts, Chicana, depending on whether my audience understands the term or not.

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 met soldiers coming back from war and I was impressed by their description of PTSD, all the symptoms: the outburst of violence, the impossibility to cope with reality anymore, all that stuff.

She stood lost in eternity wearing a crazy dress, watching the immense sky.

"Do you have any regrets?" Of course I do.

The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.

South Central is just who I am.

I really don't care about birthdays. It's something where even as a kid, I never really felt comfortable when someone would sing to me.

Gratitude is the root of joy.

In times of shrinking expectations,... everyone feels like a victim and pushes away outsiders to defend his own corner.

No matter what's going on in your life, don't let anybody take those dreams from you.

Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.