Sandra Cisneros Quotes - Page 8

What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures.

When I say what I'm reading, this is what I need. I know the ills that plague me.

When you edit, you imagine your enemy is seated on the other side of the table. Your enemy! And your enemy is going to read that with a viciousness, because he knows where you didn't work on it. He's going to shake it and really aim for that jugular. So you are going to polish, and revise, and rewrite, and cut out, and shape it, so that your enemy has no place to grip it. That's how you revise.

San Antonio drives me crazy, but Chicago drives me crazy in a different way.

So how are you supposed to learn how to drive with this guy yapping at you? My brothers were the ones who got to practice. So when you have to get on the expressway, you're afraid. That's what I think. That's why I take back routes on two-lane highways.

To tell you the truth, I think it's about that we shouldn't get our driver's licenses till real late in life.

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.

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.

I would drive on streets that were one-way and think, "Why are they all honking at me?"

It's what's available to the poor communities. They do buy healthy stuff, you know, but the lettuce is usually iceberg lettuce and to get any taste, they have to use all that ranch dressing.

I always have to have sweet and salty. I know some of you are going to say, "Oh, I tried dates. I hate them." That's probably because you had the ones that were on the shelf for three years. Go to some healthy place and get the fresh ones, and you will just love them. You'll start eating them and think they're so good.

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.

Believe it or not, Mexican cooking, for those of you who have not gone farther south than Taco Bell, uses a lot of vegetables. But those vegetables were not brought here, like corn mushrooms, huitlacoche, or squash blossoms.

There's a lot of things that haven't been communicated to our communities. I didn't know these things myself. I didn't know that if you ate cheap food, it was like buying cheap gasoline, and there was a reason why after an hour you get headaches, or youhypoglycemic.

There's no perfect place, there's no wonderful utopia.

The comments you'll get from a filmmaker about your performance are going to be very different. My writing workshop is about mixing it up, cross-pollinating, not only in genres but in occupations.

I live in a town that's two and a half hours from the border. I know people who have lived in San Antonio for generations, sometimes seven generations, their families are from there, and they are of Mexican descent, and they've never gone farther than the border.

I want to write an essay called "Fear of Mexico," because I always feel like Mexico's this lover that never writes to me.

I prefer to go to the little towns now, because in little towns people are kind. I like going to Tepotzlán.

I have this great fear of Mexico City. I won't go to Mexico City unless someone meets me at the airport and is with me. I just feel very vulnerable there.

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.

There was a time when I used to go to Mexico every year. But then Mexico changed a lot - between 1995 and 2005, Mexico changed a lot.

Friends started saying, "Oh, don't come. No vengas. It's dangerous for us, and we live here." Then there's also the issue, if you go back, and you happen to be Mexican-American, you get treated very differently [in Mexico] than if you're blond. If you say something wrong, they say, "Why don't you learn your mother tongue?"

Packing is important because a lot of times I have to go places where I have to be in four different climates in three weeks. For example, Bosnia, Ireland, Rome. Different parts of Italy. You have to pack and get it down to a science.

There's all kinds of ways to wean yourself off of sugar - because it is like an addiction.