Sandra Cisneros Quotes
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We can have our hearts broken over so much more. It is important to recognize the full spectrum of heartbreak. We can be heartbroken by lost and by disappointment. But heartbreak is not just this negative image we see, it's not this terrible experience that brings no benefits.
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I learned when I was a student in Connecticut. I had an Italian-American teacher who gave me classes for a week, and then said, "Okay, you're ready." And I wasn't ready. I didn't know how to drive!. But he knew the policeman who gave the test. And that's how I got through.
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This is the age of fear and so many of us feel afraid to speak out about what has happened to our lives in the wake of 9/11. Television promotes the world as a scary place for the United States and this justifies peeling away every element of privacy we had before. The media is monopolized so we don't even hear a lot of dissent about this new era.
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I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.
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The only reason we write - well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn't generalize - is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors - my father, his mother and her mother - to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself.
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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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Being on a highway, all that speed and aggression, is very terrifying to me.
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There's no perfect place, there's no wonderful utopia.
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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 learned from the Macarturos. I had never been at a table with a labor organizer and a playwright and a performance artist and an anthropologist and a human rights lawyer. Usually at most gatherings, it's all writers. But suddenly I was at a table with all these different people and I learned from each of them, learned from the work they're doing, learned new ways to solve my problems.
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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."
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If you can't fall asleep, learn how to meditate. I would recommend you listen to a beautiful tape called Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice Energy Evaluation Meditations For Morning and Evening, 1998. It was the one that got me out of my writer's block when I was writing Caramelo. It's by Carolyn Myss.
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I was so happy when I went to Rome and I saw that the Romans eat them too, the squash blossoms. [...] No wonder I like the Italians!
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Many books that you read, they have those disclaimers that say that, "None of the events and none of the people are based on real life" and so on... Well, I don't believe that. I think that as human beings many people touch us, especially people we love the most and we can't help but do character sketches when we go to our art.
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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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I think that you need to have books that talk about the lives of the poor, and they need to be involved - involved in acquisitions.
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I think the erotic is very spiritual, and I never see that spiritual dimension when you look at collections of erotica. That's always missing for me.
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A second person that's come to my life very recently, and I'm thankful for it, is Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the Nonviolent Communication Organization. He has all these books about how we can use our language nonviolently to help create peace. He's using a lot of Buddhism too, but he's helping me to think about language.
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I was interested in cross-pollinating the two. I thought there was something lovely in the little vignette forms. I wanted to explore that.
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The more you speak more languages, the more you understand about yourself. It's like being blind. You aren't less of a person, but you're missing out on wonderful things.
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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.
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If you're poor, potato chips are the food of life for you. It's the caviar.
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I think people should read fairy tales, because were hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.
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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.