Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

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.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

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

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

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.