“My father came from a country called Bolivia. He was of Spanish descen...” — Raquel Welch Quote

My father came from a country called Bolivia. He was of Spanish descent. I never went to Bolivia until I was 60 years old, but apparently when he was 17, he had already planned his entire academic curriculum so that he could graduate high school and enter college in the United States. That's how much he wanted to come to this country.

Without women to nurture in this world, how do - how do men get by? How do children get by? How does society get by at all?

Latinos are here to stay. As citizen Raquel, I'm proud to be Latina.

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts — only then can you be successful.

As an academic, a great deal of my time is spent writing, with very little in meetings. In government, the premium is placed on figuring things out through discussing them with other people.

What saved me from total academic failure and overwhelming ennui, was my love of libraries and all they encompass.

Anyone can write an academic piece directed at other academics. To write something that delivers an argument and a gripping storyline to someone's granny or eight-year-old takes the highest quality of your powers.

I'm not sure that finding a husband at university made me any less of a feminist or an academic. I still soaked up Susan Faludi; I still read Doris Lessing. But I did it at the same time I met someone who I felt was my soulmate.