My mom was a frustrated woman, like so many unhappy women who didn't get the opportunities they wanted.

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.

Being "nowhere" is a step towards getting somewhere.Today, if you feel like you are nowhere, you are in a powerful position to choose the "somewhere" you want to go.

I knew, as soon as I woke up, that the dream had come from God and it was about the reality of Jesus. The truth of Him. The He was a person whose pronouns you had to capitalize. That He was God.

The size of your audience is more important than the size of your book

Pray when you feel like praying," somebody has said. "Pray when you don't feel like praying. Pray until you do feel like praying.

When I used to drive on the road from L. A., one time in Arizona we went off-road to see what weird little towns are around. Loved Bisbee.

The whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women.

I remain a humanist. We are a very curious race.

Paradise is open to all kind hearts.

In truth we need to change the society itself, men as well as women, to change everything.