I had to learn quick, because I was performing in Cinco de Mayo festivals with babies crying and people lifting their beers, and you know the feather dancers would come, and they'd say, "What are you, a poet? You're next".

When you have your heart broken wide, you are also open to things of beauty as well as things of sadness. Once people are not here physically, the spiritual remains, we still connect, we can communicate, we can give and receive love and forgiveness. There is love after someone dies.

[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.

If you're going to write about the river, you've got to get in.

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.

Each book gets harder, each book gets harder and harder. I always feel like crying when I have to write.

I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?