The language of Mexicans springs from abysmal extremes of power and impotence, domination and resentment.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

The sole purpose of knowledge is to create hunger for experience.

Your test is to forgive those who have hurt you, when you pass your test you will see your breakthrough

Your choices are your only freedom.

Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.

I have declared that patience is never more than patient. I too have declared, that I who am not patient am patient.

I cook a little - I've never taken classes or anything - but enough to get by.

Working with Cate Blanchett, on and off the screen, has always been a highlight for me. She embodies the perfect combination of consummate actor and world-class fashion icon.

It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

Being a teenager is hard.

A virtuous man concentrates on his own work, not that of others.