I grew up in a dictatorship, where you couldn't talk about difficult situations - there was this culture of silence. We would run into a problem and have no one to talk to.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

Depression is always in the details.

Reading and thoughtfulness and openness are the best way, I should think, to begin to address the richness that is in each of us.

As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.