I savor life. When you have anything that threatens life... it prods you into stepping back and really appreciating the value of life and taking from it what you can.

As you may know from my life story, my cousin who was my soul mate went to a public school. And he died of AIDS. Would I and my brother have been able to resist the lure of drugs in the surrounding schools? Who knows.

I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals.

No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.

Recalling the aftermath of her father's death from alcoholism at age 42, this memoirist reminisces: I couldn't deny that our life was so much better now, but I did miss him. For all the misery he caused, I knew with certainty that he loved us. Those aren't things you can weigh or measure away. ... They're not opposites that cancel each other out. They're both true at the same time.

The Latina in me is an ember that blazes forever.

Each one of them [referring to her family] believed that hiding things is never good and that by sharing them, we could give hope to some people - because so many people we know have suffered some of the same things.