I have to take care of the house, and the dogs, and the Macondo Board meetings, all those e-mails, the letters that are going to fans. And you've got to pay bills. These things eat up your time. You have to prepare and pack to go on that trip. Then when you come back you have to file all that stuff, answer all that mail, and that's not even washing the clothes or any of that. So it takes as many days as I've been away to come back to normal and to get quiet.

I was one of those people raised by a woman who was what I call a prisoner of war. She was captured, she didn't want to be there, she was unhappy, she was banging away in the kitchen, the way that a prisoner would bang on her jail cell, you know, really unhappy. She had to cook for nine people with really little money, so she really just got burned out. So I didn't know that you could actually cook and it would be calming, pleasurable.

The truth has a strange way of following you, of coming up to you and making you listen to what it has to say.

Catholicism believes in the Virgen de Guadalupe. The mother of God is worshipped, especially in Latin America. I find her very empowering. I find that the Virgen de Guadalupe allowed me to return to parts of my upbringing I had disregarded.

[Writing is like fishing]. You don't bow because you made the fish. That's the difference. If you know that, then you bow for your labor.You crafted, you worked, you put in those hours so that you could catch that fish. But you didn't make that fish. You just caught the fish. That will help you stay humble and bow for the right reason and be very lucid about the work you do.

If you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone.

There are a few of the authors that I think have made a great big impact on my life. The way I used to do things when I was younger was more about being outrageous, and there was a lot of ego involved in that.