Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you.

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.

One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women. I always write about women who are marginalized, who have no means or resources and somehow manage to get out of those situations with incredible strength - and that is more important than anything.

I feel that my life and therefore my writing accept the possibility of all the mystery. Everything we don't know; everything that can possibly happen.

Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.

I'm such a control freak. I want to control even my own death. Decide when I will die and how.

I think that my life changed at 50. Many things happened. Menopause, the end of youth and my daughter died that year after being a whole year in a coma. So I think that I changed and I became an elder at 50.