Sometimes hearing the stories is going to change people's lives much more than if they read it.

My trainer taught me, because he's Iranian, and that's a beautiful snack [pistachios]. I have some with me, actually, in my bag. You could eat that on a plane instead of the salted nuts. And a serving size a day is the size of your hand, not the size of your head!

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.

My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another.

My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.

We started an organization that's the only sub-organization of the MacArthur Foundation and we are called the Macarturos. Usually when I win something, I'm the only one of my ethnicity to get it, but this time I met all these Latinos, and I was so excited. I'd meet someone and I'd go, [...] "Can you come to San Antonio?" And they'd go, "Oh yeah." [...] And suddenly I had twelve people that said they would come. And I didn't know how it was going to be. And that's how the Macarturos became a reality, where these very generous geniuses come to San Antonio and work together.

You know, we should have cards like the deaf have. "Can't talk, I'm writing today."