Even my mom. I have to tell her, "If you want a snack, don't go to bed with potato chips. Eat a handful of pistachios and a handful of dates."

I know the books that I need to help me to be wiser than my years and be kinder and more compassionate and more patient than I really am.

You know, you want to be outrageous when you're young, so all the young people say, "Oooh . . ." Now my tactics are different.

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

I think there's a rule that once you want to live somewhere, you can't find a job.

There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world.

I'm from Chicago, so the Chicago working-class poets still mean a great deal to me.