I don't think you comprehend the depth of my feeling for you. It goes beyond wanting to be near you, or protect you. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be treated with respect.

My Dearest Julianne, Thank you for your immeasurable gift.The only thing I have of value is my heart.It’s yours, Gabriel.

When anyone thinks a woman who serves "gives 'cause that's what mothers or real women do, " they deny her full humanity and thus fail to see the generosity inherent in her acts.

People abandoned one another constantly without performing the courtesy of of actually disappearing. They left, but didn't, lurking about, a constant reminder of what could or should have been.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

My mother is Ukrainian. She immigrated to the U.S. from Canada as a child.

Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for stars.

Institutions may crumble and governments fall, but it is only that they may renew a better youth, and mount upwards like the eagle.

The appetite is sharpened by the first bites.

I hate kitchens. I don't understand these enormous American kitchens that take up half the living room and then they just order pizza.

I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.

We already have immigration law, and it is being violated. Obama's executive amnesty is not the settled law. [Barak ] Obama's executive amnesty is outside the law, and that's why it's been stayed.