I was silent as a child, and silenced as a young woman; I am taking my lumps and bumps for being a big mouth, now, but usually from those whose opinion I don't respect.

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.

Words let you know what is in someone’s mind, deeds let you know what is in someone’s heart, and character lets you know what is in someone’s soul.

If your plan is not working, pivot. If it is working, do more of it!

The fey wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.

The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it

Look, miracles in the Middle East are a reality.

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.

In America today, the percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight is more than double what it was in the early 1970s.

The cost of discipleship is to live the life God has given us, serving in mundane ways the people he's put in our path.

Failures are easier to repeat than successes.

The more you work, the more people see your work and would like to work with you, and vice versa.