I think no matter what you do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, "Did I do what I set out to do?"

The border between the dead and the living, if you're Mexican, doesn't exist. The dead are part of your life.

I do travel a lot, because I need oxygen, I need to go to places to meet people who aren't upset at me because I'm asking for peace.

My trainer taught me, because he's Iranian, and that's a beautiful snack [pistachios]. I have some with me, actually, in my bag. You could eat that on a plane instead of the salted nuts. And a serving size a day is the size of your hand, not the size of your head!

The house was immaculate, as always, not a stray hair anywhere, not a flake of dandruff or a crumpled towel. Even the roses on the dining-room table held their breath. A kind of airless cleanliness that always made me want to sneeze.

Something I always tell students is, when you're writing something, you want to write the first draft and you want it to come out easily in the beginning. If you're afraid to say what you really have to say, you stammer. When you're thinking of your listener, that's when you start stuttering and it's just because you're nervous that your listener is passing judgment.

I'm not afraid to say what I'm afraid of. Does that make me fearless?