The TSA tears through your bags at the airport and the NSA watches what books you buy and what you say over the telephone and online. It doesn't feel like anything is private anymore.

I have to understand what my strengths and limitations are, and work from a true place. I try to do this as best I can while still protecting my writer self, which more than ever needs privacy.

I've put up with too much, too long, and now I'm just too intelligent, too powerful, too beautiful, too sure of who I am finally to deserve anything less.

Everything that I write comes when it wants to, out of its own need and it dictates its form. I don't say, "I am going to write a novel."

Even if you don't believe in God, you have to believe in love.

You can try reading books that will help you be a leader, like Marshall Rosenberg and Thich Nhat Hanh. Be very humble and say, "I don't know why. I don't feel qualified, but I accept this role that you gave me, and so help me."

[Dennis Mathis] was very sensitive about keeping the unique way that I spoke English - it had a lot of Mexicanisms or Mexican syntax. So you keep it in because it's adding something unique.