Friends started saying, "Oh, don't come. No vengas. It's dangerous for us, and we live here." Then there's also the issue, if you go back, and you happen to be Mexican-American, you get treated very differently [in Mexico] than if you're blond. If you say something wrong, they say, "Why don't you learn your mother tongue?"

Maybe all pain in the world requires poetry.

I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.

Even if you're an agnostic or an atheist, you can create an altar, because an altar is simply paying homage to someone's life and celebrating what they did.

The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.

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?"

Even though it's hard to believe, but people who know me really well know I'm shy. I have to go past that fear.