I began writing as an experimental writer.

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.

Wisdom must yield to superstition's rules, Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.

The only regret I have is that I couldn't teach you a lesson in humanity and humility. A mother should not depend on his son and that's the one mistake I committed.

The Lord will never forsake you. His presence is always with you everywhere you may go.

You may alter an opinion, but you cannot alter a #‎ fact .

I hate to sound esoteric, but there is something about a house that leads you to that one chair, that one corner, where you just sit and feel comfortable.

Ask someone you'd like to know to list five people they would most like to meet. It will tell you a lot about them.

People who postpone happiness are like children who try chasing rainbows in an effort to find the pot of gold at the rainbows end...Your life will never be fulfilled until you are happy here and now.

he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different.

No one's perfect," I whisper. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it." I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.

Old men make war, young men fight and die