The hardest thing of love is to let go.

She regretted nothing she had shared with her lover, nor was she ashamed of the fires that had changed her life; just the opposite, she felt that they had tempered her, made her strong, given her pride in making decisions and paying the consequences for them.

People come from internally, from other places in the United States, but also displaced people from other parts of the world. They come here. If you walk in the streets of San Francisco, you hear all the languages. You smell all the foods. You listen to the music from everywhere. There's great diversity.

Americans have a warrior's mentality, most of them. That's how this society was built. The fact that you own a gun and shoot to defend your life is a very American way of thinking.

January 8 has been a lucky day for me. I have started all my books on that day, and all of them have been well received by the readers. I write eight to ten hours a day until I have a first draft, then I can relax a little. I am very disciplined. I write in silence and solitude. I light a candle to call inspiration and the muses, and I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, dead and alive.

There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.

Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.