The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

Diplomacy in a sense is the opposite of writing. You have to disperse yourself so much: the lady who comes in crying because she's had a fight with the secretary; exports and imports; students in trouble; thumbtacks for the embassy.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Like all of Latin America, Mexico after independence in 1821 turned its back on a triple heritage: on the Spanish heritage, because we were newly liberated colonies, and on our Indian and black heritages, because we considered them backward and barbaric. We looked towards France, England and the U.S., to become progressive democratic republics.

From my perspective, there's no reason to be afraid of aging, because if you age, you're lucky! The alternative is death.

I had wanted to be a novelist for so long, but I didn't have a story. That story came from the death of my father, and wrestling with how to help my mother. Writing it allowed me to work through my fears, frustrations and desires. I wanted control over the situation. And I wasn't sure I would have any in real life.

To me, I was just doing my job when I took the field, but to understand how close I came to death, I now realize what God has given me when he brought me into this world; he knew what he was doing.

If you don't have imagination, you stop being human; animals don't have imagination; Alzheimer's is the death of imagination.