I was so happy when I went to Rome and I saw that the Romans eat them too, the squash blossoms. [...] No wonder I like the Italians!

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.

I had to learn quick, because I was performing in Cinco de Mayo festivals with babies crying and people lifting their beers, and you know the feather dancers would come, and they'd say, "What are you, a poet? You're next".

You know how sometimes you're talking to people who love you and give you unconditional love, and you say, "But you know what? Let me back up. I forgot to say . . ."You can do that, right? You don't hesitate and say, "Oh my God! I forgot to say that!". You just speak! And you say it all, until you have nothing more to say. And that's your first draft. It's done.

The ideal for me is to mix it up. When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre.

The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it?

I never paid attention when people said, "That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction," except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.