Sandra Cisneros Quotes
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There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world.
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I've always read broadly: literary fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, chick lit, historical, dystopian, nonfiction, memoir. I've even read Westerns. I prefer female protagonists.
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Instead of putting cheese with ranchero sauce, chile is really very good for you. If you put that in, you get flavoring, so you're not eating bland food, especially if you're used to spicy food.
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Get yourself empty in the Eastern sense. Not in the Western sense. In the Western sense when we feel empty we feel lonely, miserable, but in the Eastern sense - "I'm so empty, because I'm filled with everything, and I'm connected to everything." It's very energizing. You want that kind of emptiness, whatever you have to do to get yourself quiet.
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You don't want somebody who doesn't know his own heart, do you? You'll find someone who's brave enough to love you. Someday. One day. Not today.
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I can't go to Hindu countries where they respect rats and mice, and I can't go camping. I don't like to go into subways, because I always see them. Rats are like my naguales [kindred animal spirits]. They follow me.
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I also learned to tell a story. I think I learned from poetry how to time a story. Poetry's timing, beats and pauses. That white space on the page is as important as the black. The bottom of the page is blackout. It's performance.
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Think about the books that you were reading at a certain crisis in your life, what you were reading, and that's because you needed them to nourish your alma.
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Your prospective employer, or the person you have a crush on, or the person you want to talk to. You're judging yourself, you know, thinking about your listener. You're not thinking about what you're saying. And that same thing happens when you write.
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That's all you have to ask from yourself writing a book. That it's the best you can do and that you did it without any ego involved and that you did it for somebody else. That's the best you can do.
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Mom used to walk with me for something like two or three miles to get to the day-old bakery. They had those machines where you buy doughnuts, those vending machines with the long johns and doughnuts. We would buy those bagels and pastries because that was our treat. And come back with shopping bags of these sweets, and who knows what was in it? That was what we could afford that could feed that many people.
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I don't know what the definition of a short story is, and I don't even care to answer that question. That's something somebody in academia would think about. I just want to tell a story, and if people listen, and if it stays with you, it's a story.
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You know how women have this clock when they want to have a baby? I had this clock where I wanted to win a national award by thirty, be at a big press by thirty-five. I was always working with these self-driven goals.
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People paused to listen to Denise Chávez and she had them - with gum on her shoes, she had them. She said she stepped on gum when she came up to the stage and she couldn't move, so she had to stay in one spot otherwise people would see the Chiclet.
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Like all guests, after a fortnight, grief is best beyond the door.
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I wish somebody had told me love does not die, that we can continue to receive and give love after death.
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I feel the fear touches on something deeper. A sense perhaps of, "My life is speeding past me and I can't get a handle on it."
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The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.
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I'm just as unhappy about San Antonio as I was about Chicago. If you're unhappy about certain things, you're unhappy everywhere.
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Generally if you're a daughter in a Mexican family, no one wants to tell you anything; they tell you the healthy lies about your family.
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I grew up with this kind of grocery store that caters to the poor. They serve you the worst food.
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I'm learning a lot by reading teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron. They teach me because I feel like I have a responsibility to the communities that I speak to.
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My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.
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The house was immaculate, as always, not a stray hair anywhere, not a flake of dandruff or a crumpled towel. Even the roses on the dining-room table held their breath. A kind of airless cleanliness that always made me want to sneeze.
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But I deal with this by meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.
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I have to say my favorite stories are ghost stories. I don't like to see these made-up monster films or scary films with ghosts. It doesn't do anything to me. But a real ghost story that someone tells me, that I like.
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I have this great fear of Mexico City. I won't go to Mexico City unless someone meets me at the airport and is with me. I just feel very vulnerable there.
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I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate
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I usually say Latina, Mexican-American or American Mexican, and in certain contexts, Chicana, depending on whether my audience understands the term or not.
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Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.
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