Even if we don't know if God exists, we can be certain love exists, because its power transcends death.

When I was very young I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which later would be called "boom fiction."

People paused to listen to Denise Chávez and she had them - with gum on her shoes, she had them. She said she stepped on gum when she came up to the stage and she couldn't move, so she had to stay in one spot otherwise people would see the Chiclet.

I think that we need to measure how we give dollars to libraries by need. And the communities that are poor, in my opinion, should get more because you have to do more outreach.

When your writing is unselfconscious, when it comes from your heart, that's when it's powerful.

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.

You don't have to be the specialist on everything. You can try to inform yourself.