The truth has a strange way of following you, of coming up to you and making you listen to what it has to say.

I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone whos busy and has too many children, like my mother.

The TSA tears through your bags at the airport and the NSA watches what books you buy and what you say over the telephone and online. It doesn't feel like anything is private anymore.

I can get by and chatter and talk and tell funny stories, make people laugh, but I don't have as many words, I don't have the vocabulary. I think if I forced myself to read in Spanish - you know, I always say I'm going to, but I lose my patience reading in Spanish, because I really do read the way a third grader does, mouthing the words. That takes a long time!

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

I prefer to go to the little towns now, because in little towns people are kind. I like going to Tepotzlán.

I hope I'm not just looked as a writer that is popular but as a writer of literary value.