You say your city the way some Americans say this is their country. You never feel right saying that – my country. For some reason looking Mexican means you can’t be American.

I tried to understand how in every journey a man or woman was both hero and anti-hero at varying times. Years.

Paris, true to its promise, had been a place of civilized indecencies, or uncivil decencies...

Our goal should be to achieve joy.

A good lover will do that, see something worthwhile in you that you never knew was there. And when there’s something you don’t like to see in yourself a good lover won’t see it either.

Poverty has its advantages. When you’re that poor what would you have that anyone would want? Except your peace of mind. Your dignity. Your heart. The important things.

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.

I’ve spent my whole life in Chicago being asked where am I from, so that I have a sense of displacement that also is very psychologically disorienting.

And if you believe in God, I think She doesn’t work that way either.

The Fool card represented one who walked without fear, aware of the choices she made in the journey of life, life itself being defined as a state of courage and wisdom and not an uncontrollable participation in society, as many people experienced their lives.