I would drive on streets that were one-way and think, "Why are they all honking at 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.

Darkness moves like a pack of wild dogs.The wind moves like a wounded animal.The ground must be full of teeth by now.

Can you imagine the feeling of being an oppressed colonial being addressed respectfully by a colonizer in the mother country?

Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principles to trifles.

I'm just really impressed by oil paintings - I don't see how people do it! That's the style I like: classic oil paintings. Abstract art just isn't my thing.

The kindness of strangers and the support of the international community are truly the rays of hope we North Korean people need.

The wilderness provides an environment for a child's inner life to develop because it requires him to be constantly aware of his surroundings.

I grew up with the idea that once you found yourself with your clothes, why change?

The central icon of Catholic Christianity is mother and child. That motif is so deep in not just our human experience but in our animal, biological past.

The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason.

When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take choose the bolder.