The Mexico - United States border was always porous. People have been going and coming back since before the Spaniards arrived. Now we're seeing communities who have family members on the other side very frightened. I feel saddened for those families divided by violence. The whole border area is under siege.

To tell you the truth, I think it's about that we shouldn't get our driver's licenses till real late in life.

You can try reading books that will help you be a leader, like Marshall Rosenberg and Thich Nhat Hanh. Be very humble and say, "I don't know why. I don't feel qualified, but I accept this role that you gave me, and so help me."

If we got an educational program going, we could tell people, "Instead of butter, use avocado." That's something we eat, it has the good fat, and it has a good texture, and it tastes better. Just imagine if you substituted that. Or if we switched to olive oil, the extra virgin olive oil, we could still have our taquitos, but put a little oil on them and put them in the oven and bake them.

I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?

I think of reading as like a medicine cabinet.

I've always read broadly: literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, historical, dystopian, nonfiction, memoir. I've even read Westerns. I prefer female protagonists.