Once someone gets a little escape velocity going, ain't no play in the world that will keep them from leaving.

This country has such little sense of itself sometimes, I'm astonished. America is one of the biggest myth-making countries, whether we're talking about how many books are published, how many movies we make. But the greatest myth of all is what America is.

This is what I know: people's hopes go on forever.

She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.

As an artist you're on a journey of discovery and sometimes that journey takes a long time, doesn't subscribe to [a] train schedule, to the punch-clock. And I need to read a lot to make my pages happen.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

I think that America is such an incredibly dynamic place because of immigration. We fundamentally have been a culture that's been put together from the explosions of other cultures. But it's hard for us to see. We have blinded ourselves to the reality of what our country is.