The beauty of literature is you allow readers to see things through other peoples eyes. All good books do this.

I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.

You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.

Friends started saying, "Oh, don't come. No vengas. It's dangerous for us, and we live here." Then there's also the issue, if you go back, and you happen to be Mexican-American, you get treated very differently [in Mexico] than if you're blond. If you say something wrong, they say, "Why don't you learn your mother tongue?"

I think people should read fairy tales, because were hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.

Mexicans don't think of ghosts as haunting you.

The border between the dead and the living, if you're Mexican, doesn't exist. The dead are part of your life.