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?"

I learned when I was a student in Connecticut. I had an Italian-American teacher who gave me classes for a week, and then said, "Okay, you're ready." And I wasn't ready. I didn't know how to drive!. But he knew the policeman who gave the test. And that's how I got through.

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

I think the erotic is very spiritual, and I never see that spiritual dimension when you look at collections of erotica. That's always missing for me.

I know the books that I need to help me to be wiser than my years and be kinder and more compassionate and more patient than I really am.

You were given that pain and that vision because you have something to do with it.

Even if you don't believe in God, you have to believe in love.