“People think of Latina women as being fiery and fierce, which is usually true. But I think the quality that so many Latinas possess is strength. I'm very proud to have Latin blood.”

“As a woman, you spend so much time either cooking or getting ready to go somewhere. I like to have music when I'm doing either of these things.”

“I'm very accepting with my age. It's like notches on your belt: experience, wisdom, and a different kind of beauty. There comes a day when you've become comfortable in your skin.”

“I'm learning the power of going away for the weekend and keeping myself company.”

“It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can't do because we feed ourselves so much denial.”

“I think as an American society, when we're paying too many taxes or dealing with war, we don't want to see sad things at the movies.”

“Growing up, I had the weird fantasy list: I wanted to be Alice Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Stan Lee. You have to have almost psychotic drive, because you're going to have years of failure.”

“Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.”

“When you're growing up, I think there's this idea that the coolest people are the ones who are really rude and feverish. But I've come to realize that isn't cool.”

“We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don...”

“Never let hard lessons harden your heart; the hard lessons of life are meant to make you better, not bitter.”

“Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to ...”

“How can I tell anyone that there has always lived within me a rusty sense of disgust-a dull, brackish water that I suspect is my soul?”

“I'll tell you a secret.Old storytellers never die.They disappear into their own story.”

“A secret note is secret. There is no reason to sign it.”