If you're going to write about the river, you've got to get in.

I feel the fear touches on something deeper. A sense perhaps of, "My life is speeding past me and I can't get a handle on it."

There are still many writers out in the Bay, extraordinary writers like Gina Valdez, a poet who I just saw in Portland. We have young people like Eduardo Corral, who won the Yale Younger Poets Award. José Antonio Rodriguez, published by Luis Rodriguez. But there are only a few of us who are paid attention to in New York. There are legions behind us who are not.

I don't want to blame anybody, but I just want to tell you that the process of writing is antisocial, so on the days that you have something really important to write, go from lying down directly to your notepad or your computer. Do not talk.

To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year's Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class.

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.

Mexicans don't think of ghosts as haunting you.