Wishes and fears are illusions, Dil Bahadur, not realities. You must practice detachment.

And the truth is that if a writer is successful, you gain readers. It benefits all the writers. It's important for all the writers that as many of us as possible be successful.

Life is very mysterious and there are many things we don't know. And there are elements of magic realism in every culture, everywhere. It's just accepting that we don't know everything and everything is possible.

Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.

I was born in ancient times, at the end of the world, in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.

In Venezuela, when I was living there, crime was growing. You couldn't feel safe anywhere. You couldn't leave your car in the street because it would be stolen. You coun't live in your house if you didn't have a high-security alarm system, because you would be burglarized seven times a week.

Feminism has never been sexy, but let me assure you that it never stopped me from flirting, and I have seldom suffered from lack of men.