“I was the first Chicano to write in complete sentences.”

“I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.”

“Write the ending first and then you'll know before the opening sentence that it's going to be a good book.”

“Before you can write a single sentence, you must first create an entire world to support it.”

“I learned in therapy the word "No" is a complete sentence.”

“Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing…For me, a line has to sing before it does anything else. The great thrill is when a sentence that starts out being completely plain suddenly begins to sing, rising far above itself and above any expectation I might have had for it. That’s what keeps me going on those dark December days when I think about how I could be living instead of writing.”