San Antonio drives me crazy, but Chicago drives me crazy in a different way.

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.

Do you always ask me the same questions you ask him?""It depends on whether or not I get an answer.

He breathed in hard. The stench of blood filled his lungs. Only now, for the first time, could he truly appreciate it.

When I was six all I could think about was ding-dongs and yo-yos.

People only disappear when they have somewhere to go

You should not suffer the past. You should be able to wear it like a loose garment, take it off and let it drop.

You look at someone like Beyoncé singing Single Ladies, when we all know she's married. Some of it is just for entertainment.

If you are touched by music you are touched by love in a very pure way.

You can be with one of the most beautiful women in the world and still be unhappy.

If we must part for ever, Give me but one kind word to think upon, And please myself withal, whilst my heart's breaking!

Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.