Sandra Cisneros Quotes - Page 6

She became politically conscious thanks to Studs Terkel and the radio. She started reading all the books we brought home from college and was a great fan of Noam Chomsky. She was a real lefty and yet was not able to meet her dream of becoming an artist. She got drafted into motherhood big time - seven kids - and that wasn't the life that she had planned. So she opened the path so that I could be the artist that she wanted to be.

When we started publishing, you had to be better than good. You had to be excellent. But as long as people are reading, I don't care what they're reading.

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.

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.

If you start thinking about who's going to read it [you're writing], or what grade will you get, or is it going to win that award, or are you going to get into this graduate program, you're blocking the light, and the light is that guidance and love we get when we open up our hearts and are guided by our higher selves, or God, or the Buddha Lupe [Buddha and the Virgin of Guadalupe fused together, as they are in the tattoo on Sandra's right arm], or whatever you believe in, or love.

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?

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.

What I've learned is, if I have to go out and speak, the best way to get people's attention is to tell them a story, tell them a story that came from my corazón.

Even if you don't believe in God, you have to believe in love.

I wish somebody had told me love does not die, that we can continue to receive and give love after death.

You know, you want to be outrageous when you're young, so all the young people say, "Oooh . . ." Now my tactics are different.

I don't see any kind of mirror of power, male power, that is, as a form of liberation. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe this is truly freedom.

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.

I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate

When I'm starting to feel, "How many more people are there?" I go slower. I ask questions, and that person engaging with me gives me energy.

[Jorge Luis Borges] had short stories, and I was trying to learn how to write short stories, and then he had these things in the middle that were like fables, and I loved hearing fables.

I didn't marry. I didn't have children. I followed the food supply for jobs. I kept writing at night. And that kept me moving. It kept my life disruptive. It broke up many relationships. Was it worth it? Yes.

I think people should read fairy tales, because were hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.

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.

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.

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!

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.

You can try reading books that will help you be a leader, like Marshall Rosenberg and Thich Nhat Hanh. Be very humble and say, "I don't know why. I don't feel qualified, but I accept this role that you gave me, and so help me."

I had no concept of this [healthy food] until very, very late in life, thanks to a trainer/nutritionist that I met who has been working with me since I was forty-five.

I'm filled with a new joy mixed with old grief.