In order to stay out of trouble I worked in industry. You can't even do that nowadays; there were all those factories.

I had to find meaning in it. So I go through this, I see all these homies die; I see all this terrible devastation, people sitting in prison. I've been saved from prison, from death, and from heroine addiction. What am I going to do with that?

In order to stay out of trouble I worked in industry. You can't even do that nowadays; there were all those factories.

Nobody had books at home. My dad was a very educated person, so he would have books at home. All Spanish books. That helped. Most of my homies had no books at home.

We need more leaders among our gente - more teachers, politicians, businesspeople, organizers, and such. Turn the energy that many young people are putting into "war" and "death" and put it into life and true justice.

When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone.

One summer I was homeless in L.A., when I was about fifteen, and I used to go to the library to get books. I would have books in abandoned cars, in the seats, cubby holes on the L.A. River, just to have books wherever I could keep them, I just loved to have books. And that really helped me. I didn't realize it was going to be my destiny; I didn't know I was going to be a writer.