I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails.

A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.

What we say and what we do ultimately comes back to us so let us own our responsibility, place it in our hands, and carry it with dignity and strength.

Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an "alien" element.

Books saved my sanity, knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.

Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me.

I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.

Nothing happens in the 'real' world unless it first happens in the images in our heads

I am playing with my Self, I am playing with the world's soul, I am the dialogue between my Self and el espiritu del mundo. I change myself, I change the world.

I change myself, I change the world.

The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.

Adults were constantly auditioning, but for what?

I may be a famous writer but when white people clinch to their wallet and stare at me with scorn I need to ask my skin why.

Software was the key element that would determine how useable and how broadly applicable the machine was.

The honest answer is more complex. On some level I was sent. Or inspired. Or called. But my calling, such as it was, wasn't a single booming invitation from above (really, is it ever?).

I believe an international criminal court is very much to be desired.

I do think that the Republican Party is in a crisis right now, a crisis of confidence about who we are.

A good name is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.

People are always casting me for what they call my 'authority.

Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.