This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need chartiy; they need justice.

If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so.

Literary characters, like my grandmother's apparitions, are fragile beings, easily frightened; they must be treated with care so they will feel comfortable in my pages

Affection is like the noonday sun; it does not need the presence of another to be manifest.

Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings. We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters.

In terrible moments, in moments of revolution, of war or repression, of illness or death, people react with incredible strength.

Someone has said that conversation is sex for the soul.