Even if you don't believe in God, you have to believe in love.

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.

The thoughts of letting go of everything I love overwhelms like a tsunami of sorrow.

'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves.

I live in a town that's two and a half hours from the border. I know people who have lived in San Antonio for generations, sometimes seven generations, their families are from there, and they are of Mexican descent, and they've never gone farther than the border.

I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity.

I learned from the Macarturos. I had never been at a table with a labor organizer and a playwright and a performance artist and an anthropologist and a human rights lawyer. Usually at most gatherings, it's all writers. But suddenly I was at a table with all these different people and I learned from each of them, learned from the work they're doing, learned new ways to solve my problems.