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.

I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.

Music is a wind that blows away the years, memories, and fear, that crouching animal I carry inside me.

I carry around a little stool to stand on when people want a picture with their cellular phones.

It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail...Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us.

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

In times of conflict, war, poverty or religious fundamentalism, women and children are the first and most numerous victims. Women need all their courage today.