Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.

We can live with lots of things, but we can't live without imagination, we can't live without hope.

I'm a mongrel in the sense that I'm Spanish, English, Latino, Jewish, north, south - all these things are mixed in me.

Torture presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.

This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.

I think to be in exile is a curse, and you need to turn it into a blessing. Youve been thrown into exile to die, really, to silence you so that your voice cannot come home. And so my whole life has been dedicated to saying, I will not be silenced.

Those who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.