People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

I'm a royal pain in the behind.

To realize the American dream, the most important thing to understand is that it belongs to everybody. It's a human dream. If you understand this and work very hard, it is possible.

People look at you and see that you've made it, but sometimes they forget that it took you years of being a human being.

Latin life is rich with warmth, family values and history. I want to bring that beauty into American homes.

How proud I am to be compared to Oprah. I really admire her. She's a minority woman and she's done all this by herself... I'm very happy to be Oprah with salsa and not Donahue in drag.

I have gotten into a lot of trouble in my life for being brutally honest. Sometimes I put both my feet in my mouth. But like Elton John, I'm still standing.

We Latin women are liberated from the neck up, not the neck down.

For me, the American promise isn't just an idea or a theory - it's my life story.

Being a professional woman, I function the best when I don't distinguish between work and play.

The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That's what we're all fighting for.

Every action has an impact

This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.

(To the haters) You are not extinguishing the bright lights of mankind, you're simply burying yourself in an unmarked grave.

You are not in this life to count up victories and defeats. You are in it to love and be loved. You are loved with your head down. You will be loved whether you finish or not.

I pay those guys to fly, so let them fly. I'll be damned if I'll pay them to just sit there.

All good things were formerly bad things; every original sin has turned into an original virtue.

Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don't want to set him down as a failure till he's dead or loses his courage.

American democracy and the Soviet system can exist simultaneously and compete peacefully. But one cannot develop into the other.

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

When everything seems to be going well and your dream is almost within your gasp, that is when you must be more alert than ever.