You get good at being by yourself and you're condemned to a life sentence of solitude. You think, "Wait a minute! I should have been a tap dancer or something". But in my life, I feel like I take my stories to people orally.

I am not in touch with other writers. I don't have very much contact with other writers. I don't get invited to these things or I don't go to them. I hate panels. I speak to librarians and to conferences of English teachers. That's what I do: teachers and librarians. And high school kids.

Like all guests, after a fortnight, grief is best beyond the door.

I had no concept of this [healthy food] until very, very late in life, thanks to a trainer/nutritionist that I met who has been working with me since I was forty-five.

Generally if you're a daughter in a Mexican family, no one wants to tell you anything; they tell you the healthy lies about your family.

I don't really think our government at heart wants peace. So I urge you, write to Mrs. Laura Bush, because she reads.

If we were multilingual, imagine how much you would learn about your own culture, about the sensibilities of what's important in your own culture.