My readers are as diverse as any group you will ever see. Something that booksellers always tell me. That they are always surprised at the kind of people that come to my readings. That they are such a mix of ages and colors. It looks like people spilling out of an elevator.

The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.

One of the things I used to dream of is that if I could just be funny like Red Skelton, if I could be a comedian like Red Skelton - that's what I watched on TV - then maybe I would have friends. I just remember that if I told stories to my friends, they listened. And in my family, with nine people talking at the same time, it's really hard to get people to listen to you. We were all craving attention.

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.

I live in a town that's two and a half hours from the border. I know people who have lived in San Antonio for generations, sometimes seven generations, their families are from there, and they are of Mexican descent, and they've never gone farther than the border.

Every writer I admire is my teacher. If you look at it, and if you care to read carefully enough and to read and reread a text, you teach yourself something about craft.

The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it?