What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures.

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.

Don’t let the present pass in sorrow, hoping that the future will be full of Joy.

This is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws.

I had to make a drastic change at Sun Records and I didn't really appreciate country music until I went there.

Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody; forty years learning he was nobody; and forty years discovering what God can do with a nobody.

If there's a reason for the way that life is I'd like to find it. After all, who's life is it?

Ownership and control is important, because if you don't own what you do, all sorts of stupid stuff happens to it, and people spend good money on garbage.

Schools used to fund-raise for luxuries, like a trip to the water slides. Now, we fund-raise for things we have to have.

I don't know how to do the other, so I won't even consider television until the audience's taste changes.

Don’t take life too seriously and always remember: it is just a passing fad.

I think I approach all of my writing in the same way. I mean, it's my job, and I'm committed to it. I don't just float around and wait for some muse to call.