What I've learned is, if I have to go out and speak, the best way to get people's attention is to tell them a story, tell them a story that came from my corazón.

You know, if you've got nine people that you've got to get a treat for - because you do have sweet food, even if you're poor - you can't go out and buy a Sara Lee cake. You buy the big bag of cookies, those chocolate and vanilla ones with the icing. That has a lot of trans fat in it, but it goes a long way with a lot of people.

Books are medicine and you have to take the right medicine that you need at that moment or that day or that time in your life.

I think no matter what you do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, "Did I do what I set out to do?"

Before you speak, get very quiet, do the meditation, say, "Use me as a channel for what needs to get said to this community. This community needs to hear something very important that I'm the only person in the room who can say it. Please help open me so that I'm not frightened and speak through me. Let me be that channel so that I can help heal." You make yourself so humble that you really are like a flute and that music that comes out comes from el corazón. All the people you're connected to from that light that we call love.

There was a time when I used to go to Mexico every year. But then Mexico changed a lot - between 1995 and 2005, Mexico changed a lot.

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