Sandra Cisneros Quotes
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There are still many writers out in the Bay, extraordinary writers like Gina Valdez, a poet who I just saw in Portland. We have young people like Eduardo Corral, who won the Yale Younger Poets Award. José Antonio Rodriguez, published by Luis Rodriguez. But there are only a few of us who are paid attention to in New York. There are legions behind us who are not.
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Mice and any rodentia. Guinea pigs. Even rabbits, I can't stand. Rabbits are cousins to rats. It's a class thing. If you had to grow up with rats scampering in your backyard, because the city services were cut in half and the population in your neighborhood doubled, then that also is going to mean that the flora and fauna are going to grow as well. So that's a part of it. That's why I can't go to Hindu countries where they respect rats and mice, and I can't go camping.
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I was looking at a lot of experimental writers, and I was very intrigued by short-short fiction, writers who would write little things, what I call buttons now, little vignettes.
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I think that it's not enough to do the little Band-Aid things of having celebrities come and read to children. Not that we don't need to read to children, but we don't need to just do it one time and feel good about it. I think we need to think long range about poor people and their relationship to libraries.
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When you're in that state of grief, any little breeze, any hello, any confrontation, any grazing of someone meeting your eyes, might cause you suddenly to burst into grief. You could be looking at a jar of peanut butter in the supermarket, and then start crying.
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Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in
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Every book changes my writing because I'm always trying to do something I didn't do before. I try to do what's hard for me, what I haven't done in the past.
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The writer Denise Chávez comments on poor food and what you associate with luxury food items. In fact, she wrote a whole book called A Taco Testimony, and though the title sounds light, it's a heavy book. It's about being working class and what kind of food is available to you that's cheap.
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I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet.
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God made men by baking them in an oven, but he forgot about the first batch, and that's how Black people were born. And then he was so anxious about the next batch, he took them out of the oven too soon, so that's how White people were made. But the third batch he let cook until they were golden-golden-golden, and, honey, that's you and me.
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Even my mom. I have to tell her, "If you want a snack, don't go to bed with potato chips. Eat a handful of pistachios and a handful of dates."
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I've come to some balance now and calmness. If anything happened to me and I got hit by a bus - I hope this doesn't happen, but if something happened - my body of work is something I could rest on. I don't feel, "Oh God, I have to hurry up . . ."
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Every writer I admire is my teacher. If you look at it, and if you care to read carefully enough and to read and reread a text, you teach yourself something about craft.
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I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.
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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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I never know what something is going to be until it emerges from the womb and you see the crown of its head and then you see it pushing its way up. So in my life if another book wants to be born it's not for me to choose.
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The ego's blocking the light from coming.
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Don't be afraid to say what you don't know, and speak for what you do know. Say, "I can't speak for all Latinas, but I can speak for me and tell you very, very honestly."
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I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?
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The older you get, the more power you have with language as a writer, which means that you have to be extra responsible for what you say, whether it's in print or in front of a microphone, because those words can go out and kill or go out and plant seeds for peace.
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Thich Nhat Hanh the one that revolutionized Buddhism. Instead of being monks just engaged in meditation, it was active Buddhism. You went out and felt the ills of the community around you. Instead of retreating to a monastery, you were out in the streets working. And he's been a great help to me, just reading his book, so I don't feel helpless about what I can do about all the violence around me.
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You want to be able to say anything when you do your first draft, because some of that goofy stuff that you think has nothing to do with it is probably where the mother lode is.
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It's difficult for me to have a large story, a very large story - a novel is a large story. I'm used to writing and doing these little miniature paintings.
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One of the things I used to dream of is that if I could just be funny like Red Skelton, if I could be a comedian like Red Skelton - that's what I watched on TV - then maybe I would have friends. I just remember that if I told stories to my friends, they listened. And in my family, with nine people talking at the same time, it's really hard to get people to listen to you. We were all craving attention.