People want you to be the ambassador of everything. This happens to me especially when I go to Europe. I have to be the ambassador of everything. I learned this from Elena Poniatowska - intelligent woman, great lady, one of my heroes, one of my spiritual mentors, I love her. Someone is in this big museum and they ask her, "Elenita, what do you think about Mexican women . . ." And she says, "I haven't a clue!"

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.

When I say what I'm reading, this is what I need. I know the ills that plague me.

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.

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

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

Every writer I admire is my teacher. If you look at it, and if you care to read carefully enough and to read and reread a text, you teach yourself something about craft.