And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.

By community I mean that community you have a special vision for, that only you see, that no one else in a room sees. That special community in pain, that through a pain you've suffered, you're able to have that vision, that super-ray vision.

People like to blame Mexican food, but look at what's happening globally, look at all the fast foods and products filled with trans fat. Before the Mexican Revolution, a hundred years ago, people were eating what now macrobiotics tells us to eat, corn, black beans, rice. That's what people were eating - and chile peppers. That's a healthy diet. And also they ate a lot of vegetables.

I think that it's not enough to do the little Band-Aid things of having celebrities come and read to children. Not that we don't need to read to children, but we don't need to just do it one time and feel good about it. I think we need to think long range about poor people and their relationship to libraries.

Sometimes hearing the stories is going to change people's lives much more than if they read it.

I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.

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