I think of reading as like a medicine cabinet.

The ideal for me is to mix it up. When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre.

What you're going to be asked to do is bigger than what you think you can do. It's always bigger than what you think you can handle, but you're never going to be given something you can't handle.

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?"

One of the things Thich Nhat Hanh taught me: he says, "When you're in a hurry, go slower." That works every time, unless you're trying to catch a plane.

You know, you want to be outrageous when you're young, so all the young people say, "Oooh . . ." Now my tactics are different.

I was reading Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, and I'm still very, very deeply moved by Gwendolyn Brooks's life and her work.