I have to understand what my strengths and limitations are, and work from a true place. I try to do this as best I can while still protecting my writer self, which more than ever needs privacy.

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.

Then I choose to drown. In hope. Rather than float into nothing.

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.

Revival fires flame where hearts are praying.

Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist.

Art is what gets communicated at a live show, which is why live shows are so amazing. To communicate in a different way is a mixed message. It devalues everything.

Chess is imagination.

Reality isn't what it used to be.

Nirvikalpa samadhi is another matter. In order to enter into nirvikalpa samadhi, you must have a great deal of humility.

Success is the study of the obvious. Everyone should take Obvious 1 and Obvious 2 in school.

Someone now has to step up and take on the mantelpiece.