We don't have an explanation for everything that happens. We don't control almost anything. And if we are not open to that mystery, life becomes so small.

I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it.

I'm living in California but I have a place that is mine in Chile and I belong there. I am no longer an exile.

We want a world where life is preserved, and the quality of life is enriched for everybody, not only for the privileged.

Love is a free contract that begins with a spark and can end the same way.

I was born in the middle of World War II, the middle of the Holocaust; I was born when there was no declaration of human rights, when feminism was not an issue, when children were working in factories. I mean, today's world is a better place!

Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country.