If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.

The good thing about Dennis [ Mathis] is, even though he's a white, he respected that I was doing something quirky with my English. He loved it when I would mix up the Americanisms and say, "That's water over the dam."

The devil knows more from experience than from being the devil

That's what you need for your writing - to learn how to be present, learn how to be calm. So take that nap, do that meditation.

If you know two cultures and two languages, that intermediate place, where the two don't perfectly meet, is really interesting.

Even my mom. I have to tell her, "If you want a snack, don't go to bed with potato chips. Eat a handful of pistachios and a handful of dates."

Sometimes hearing the stories is going to change people's lives much more than if they read it.