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I find myself using Spanish words much more now that I'm older, and I guess I have the authority to do it in public spaces in ways that I felt I couldn't when I was teaching here fifteen years ago.
Sandra Cisneros -
One of the things I like to pack, that I take with me all the time, is my Virgensita de Guadalupe. It doesn't take much room in your suitcase. If you have one that isn't so fancy, you can use it on the plane when you're scared.
Sandra Cisneros
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When I was very young I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which later would be called "boom fiction."
Sandra Cisneros -
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.
Sandra Cisneros -
As people who are women, who are Indigenous and live on Indigenous lands, we know, and this is something I understand the older I get, that they don't visit the same way the postman may visit but they do visit. They visit in ways that our modern society often disregards and considers immaterial or unreal.
Sandra Cisneros -
I want to write an essay called "Fear of Mexico," because I always feel like Mexico's this lover that never writes to me.
Sandra Cisneros -
I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity.
Sandra Cisneros -
Heartbreak allows us to also experience joy and love but you have to walk through heartbreak to even know what joy is. Heartbreak is a constant and it is even necessary. It allows us the opportunity of introspection and exploration. Those processes are what is necessary to write and engage in the arts.
Sandra Cisneros
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If you're poor, potato chips are the food of life for you. It's the caviar.
Sandra Cisneros -
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.
Sandra Cisneros -
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 . . ."
Sandra Cisneros -
Even if you're an agnostic or an atheist, you can create an altar, because an altar is simply paying homage to someone's life and celebrating what they did.
Sandra Cisneros -
For example, there's no word emocionó in English, so I have to say, "You, you really emotioned me," It's more precise, even though it sounds odd. "My father emotioned me." Or "That performance really emotioned to me."
Sandra Cisneros -
The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros -
To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year's Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class.
Sandra Cisneros -
Believe me, that nap is better than sitting there for three hours and nothing's coming. I've learned that even if I've slept nine hours and I just finished breakfast, if I feel sleepy when I'm in front of that computer, I'll take a nap. And it really does help.
Sandra Cisneros -
I was one of those people raised by a woman who was what I call a prisoner of war. She was captured, she didn't want to be there, she was unhappy, she was banging away in the kitchen, the way that a prisoner would bang on her jail cell, you know, really unhappy. She had to cook for nine people with really little money, so she really just got burned out. So I didn't know that you could actually cook and it would be calming, pleasurable.
Sandra Cisneros -
I tell people to write the stories that you're afraid to talk about, the stories you wish you'd forget, because those have the most power. Those are the ones that have the most strength when you give them as a testimony.
Sandra Cisneros -
I know the books that I need to help me to be wiser than my years and be kinder and more compassionate and more patient than I really am.
Sandra Cisneros
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My readers are as diverse as any group you will ever see. Something that booksellers always tell me. That they are always surprised at the kind of people that come to my readings. That they are such a mix of ages and colors. It looks like people spilling out of an elevator.
Sandra Cisneros -
I think of reading as like a medicine cabinet.
Sandra Cisneros -
The ego's blocking the light from coming.
Sandra Cisneros -
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.
Sandra Cisneros