Fairy tales had been her first experience of the magical universe, and more than once she had wondered why people ended up distancing themselves from that world, knowing the immense joy that childhood had brought to their lives.

Ordinary women of grace are, in a sense, my real role models.

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.

I believe that each of us-no matter what our age or background or walk of life-each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.

I go out on publicity tours for my books, and, you know, Latinos, they bring everybody in the family to everything, even little kids. So I always ask the kids, 'Who wants to be the first Latino President?' It used to be no hands went up, or maybe one or two. Now, with Obama, many of the little hands go up. It will happen in my lifetime.

People need to feel like their heroes are human, not on the mat but in the world. The more people can see that, the more they can understand that they're capable of doing great things as well.