Sandra Cisneros Quotes
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When your writing is unselfconscious, when it comes from your heart, that's when it's powerful.
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I had a mother who walked to the library with me, and you can't walk to a lot of libraries in San Antonio because - guess what? - there are no sidewalks, except in the neighborhoods. And they're across big boulevards, and it's so hot, you can't even walk to the corner. So things like that affect how children can get to libraries. So there are a lot of things involved.
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You were given that pain and that vision because you have something to do with it.
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If you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone.
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Well, when you're an immigrant writer, or an immigrant, you're not always welcome to this country unless you're the right immigrant. If you have a Mexican accent, people look at you like, you know, where do you come from and why don't you go back to where you came from? So, even though I was born in the United States, I never felt at home in the United States. I never felt at home until I moved to the Southwest, where, you know, there's a mix of my culture with the U.S. culture, and that was why I lived in Texas for 25 years.
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It takes a long time for women to feel it's alright to be chingona. To aspire to be a chingona!...You are saying, 'This is my camino, this is my path and I'm gonna follow it, regardless of what culture says.' I don't think the church likes chingonas. I don't think the state likes chingonas.! And fathers definitely do not like chingonas. And boyfriends don't like chingonas. But, you know, I remain optimistic. I will meet a man who likes a chingona, one day. One day, my chingon will come.
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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 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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I'm most tired after I read, after I've just done a performance, but what I try to do is to fuel and eat a really healthy meal before I perform. I want to have enough energy to talk to that last person.
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I do travel a lot, because I need oxygen, I need to go to places to meet people who aren't upset at me because I'm asking for peace.
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I think a lot of education has to be involved. If they would have alternative items, so that, say, for a dollar more, you can get breakfast tacos stuffed with egg whites, and olive oil, and avocado; not guacamole, because they put the salt in it. Just ask for fresh avocado slices, and you could have that.
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Everything that is most mine belongs to everyone now.
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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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If educators were really understanding of that, they'd say, "You know what? Forget about bilingual, we're going to do multilingual education." So children are ready for the new millennium. We're way behind compared to countries in Europe. If we were multilingual, imagine how much you would learn about your own culture, about the sensibilities of what's important in your own culture.
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The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it?
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I remember when they started publishing Latino fiction years ago. You had to be really good to get published. Now you don't have to be that good.
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If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.
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You'll change. You'll see. Wait till you meet Mr. Right.
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I've been on television saying, "¡Vamos a la biblioteca!". That was great. Nobody had ever asked me.
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I usually meditate and I call my spirit allies - anyone in the spirit world that I've got connections with. Even in the spirit world you need connections!
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How can art make a difference in the world?
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My trainer taught me, because he's Iranian, and that's a beautiful snack pistachios. I have some with me, actually, in my bag. You could eat that on a plane instead of the salted nuts. And a serving size a day is the size of your hand, not the size of your head!
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One way to get very humble is to dedicate the work you're going to do to your community.
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I grew up with this kind of grocery store that caters to the poor. They serve you the worst food.