People Like To Think Of

I Was Just, Like, Not At All The Office Type; I Was The Artist Type.

When I Devoted Myself To Poetry - And Poetry Is A Very Serious Medium - I Don't Think The People That Knew Me As An Individual With That Tongue-in-cheek Kind Of Humor...well, It Didn't Always Lend Itself To My Poetry. When You're Writing Poetry, It's Like Working With Gold, You Can't Waste Anything. You Have To Be Very Economical With Each Word You're Going To Select. But When You're Writing Fiction, You Can Just Go On And On; You Can Be More Playful. My Editor's Main Task Is To Cut Back, Not Ask For More.

You Know You Have That Zealousness Of The Young Person That Feels Like You Can Go Out And Do It All. You Know You Save The World, Save Your Gente, Save Women And Before You Know It If You Try To Do That You Will Burn Out Very Quickly. My Feeling Is That I Always Think That And My Advice To Young People Regardless Of What Times In These Decades We've Been Living In There's Always Work To Be Done. The Point Is What Can You Do Personally That You Can Live With So That You Can Get Up The Next Morning And Have The Strength To Start It All Over Again.

When I Hear That Jennifer Lopez Is Such A Role Model For Latinas, On The One Hand I Respect Her For Her Business Sense And I Respect Her For Her Ambition. But She's In The Entertainment World. She's Done It On Her Looks And Very Specifically On Her Anatomy. Madonna Is Also Considered A Great Businesswoman And So Is Yoko Ono. I Feel If I Had A Young Daughter Right Now, I Would Feel A Little Discouraged If That Was My Daughter's Primary Role Model For Success And For Young People, For Latinas And Latinos.

Once Innocence--an All Too-brief State Of Being, If Such A One Exists--encounters Experience, It Is Transformed. If That Transformation Is Understood, It Becomes Knowledge. And If That Knowledge Is Employed, Then It Becomes Wisdom.