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'Don Quijote' by Cervantes. I read the original Spanish version when I was in high school. Such a classic!

I'm a professor of comparative literature, among other things, so I'm able to read in a couple of other languages, and I understand that not everyone is, not everyone can, although it is quite stunning how many people do read Spanish in the United States, but moving between languages is also extremely helpful.

Cervantes is the most important Spanish writer. But he is not the most representative of the Spanish. His irony, his sense of humor - they are too subtle to seem Spanish.

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.

Girls read a boy book, but boys don't necessarily want to read a girl book.

Many of the books I read, I had to read them in French, English, or Italian, because they hadn't been translated into Spanish.

When I was a girl, there wasn't anything in Spanish in the movies until you saw it on DVD.

I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant. Not: 'This is Dominican food. This is a Spanish word.' I trust my readers, even non-Spanish ones.

Spanish children are too often ill-cared for, but despite the abuses of ignorant motherhood and fatherhood, such vivid, vivacious, bewitching little people as they are!