When I was a child, I was very shy, and there's still a part of me that's very shy.

I also learned to tell a story. I think I learned from poetry how to time a story. Poetry's timing, beats and pauses. That white space on the page is as important as the black. The bottom of the page is blackout. It's performance.

If you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone.

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.

I can't do a linear novel. I'm just going to write what I need to write.

I feel like I am in a box of bees when I am in a room with lots of people and I'm just looking for the door. I find myself getting more and more agoraphobic as time goes on.