I don't think I'll write a large novel again because it was like being in jail for me. Even though that's the funniest book I've ever written, it was the saddest period of my life.

I think there's some great stuff coming. I do feel that. I think we have reached our Harlem Renaissance.

If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.

Once you can open yourself to joy, you feel as if you've transformed your sadness into illumination, which is really all that art is. All we want to do is transform the negative emotions into light. We want to compost them into light.

As an artist, I have to be the ambassador of everything.

Imagine Americans who go to Paris. Why would you want to go where someone's going to disparage you? Why would you go anywhere where they treat you bad? Well, that's how it is for us to go to Mexico. You have to be on your guard, because I think the Mexicans are harder on the Mexicans, the Mexican-Americans. They don't see us as Mexican. I think part of it's a class issue and a color issue. We're more connected to their servants, so what are we doing staying at a nice hotel? There's a kind of shame.

Don't be afraid to say what you don't know, and speak for what you do know. Say, "I can't speak for all Latinas, but I can speak for me and tell you very, very honestly."