I'm happy. I've had a great career. I adore my family. My closest friends from decades ago remain my closest friends.

I am a Cuban mother, and you do not let your cubs get into trouble without you trying to help them all the way.

I always knew what I was worth, what I could do, what I could not do. I think that I have a genetic problem with lying. I just can't lie. I get in trouble with my husband because of that. He wishes that I wasn't so sincere, but I am.

In my house, we speak Spanglish to the dogs, to the grandchildren, to the kids.

Real Christians revel in desperate ventures for Christ, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration.

So much of what comes out of the faith community seems so dour and somber, and we want to say, 'Hey, we're real people. You can be a person of faith and really enjoy life and laugh.'

Circulating through the children's ward and seeing terminally ill kids, heads shaved, smiling and having a ball despite the tubes and needles sticking into them, I thought: What do I have to worry about? If God takes me, at least I've lived for 35 years.

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.