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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

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As People Who Are

Sandra Cisneros

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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.

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I Think There's A Rule That Once You Want To Live Somewhere, You Can't Find A Job.

[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.

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.

[dennis Mathis] Was Very Sensitive About Keeping The Unique Way That I Spoke English - It Had A Lot Of Mexicanisms Or Mexican Syntax. So You Keep It In Because It's Adding Something Unique.

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 Usually Say Latina, Mexican-american Or American Mexican, And In Certain Contexts, Chicana, Depending On Whether My Audience Understands The Term Or Not.

For Me, A Story's A Story If People Want To Hear It; It's Very Much Based On Oral Storytelling. And For Me, A Story Is A Story When People Give Me The Privilege Of Listening When I'm Speaking It Out Loud.

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.

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.

We Women Shouldn't Get Our Driver's Licenses Till Real Late In Life.

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky . You Can Fall Asleep And Wake Up Drunk On Sky, And Sky Can Keep You Safe When You Are Sad. Here There Is Too Much Sadness And Not Enough Sky. Butterflies Too Are Few And So Are Flowers And Most Things That Are Beautiful. Still, We Take What We Can Get And Make The Best Of It.

I've Put Up With Too Much, Too Long, And Now I'm Just Too Intelligent, Too Powerful, Too Beautiful, Too Sure Of Who I Am Finally To Deserve Anything Less.

I Want To Write An Essay Called "fear Of Mexico," Because I Always Feel Like Mexico's This Lover That Never Writes To Me.

Like All Guests, After A Fortnight, Grief Is Best Beyond The Door.

I Was Raised A Catholic, But With Very Liberal Parents, So I Had To Find My Spirituality. I've Been Looking For It Since I Was A Child. I Would Find It In Pieces Of Art, Music, Flowers, Trees. Now I've Come Full Circle Finding God In Clouds, Flowers, And Trees.

When You Become A Driver, They Don't Tell You That You Have To Switch Languages. The Drivers Have Their Own Language And They Don't Tell You That As Girls. How Am I Supposed To Know That Blinking Light Means Something? There Are All These Little Languages That You Have To Know, But You Don't Know.

Every Book Takes You To The Terror, That Terrible Place Of Possible Failure.

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.

I Always Tell People That I Became A Writer Not Because I Went To School But Because My Mother Took Me To The Library. I Wanted To Become A Writer So I Could See My Name In The Card Catalog.

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.

My Feminism Is Humanism, With The Weakest Being Those Who I Represent, And That Includes Many Beings And Life Forms, Including Some Men.

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.

The Experience Taught Me To Be Present In The Real Buddhist Sense Of Paying Attention To The Moment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People Like To Blame Mexican Food, But Look At What's Happening Globally, Look At All The Fast Foods And Products Filled With Trans Fat. Before The Mexican Revolution, A Hundred Years Ago, People Were Eating What Now Macrobiotics Tells Us To Eat, Corn, Black Beans, Rice. That's What People Were Eating - And Chile Peppers. That's A Healthy Diet. And Also They Ate A Lot Of Vegetables.

I Don't Like To Go Into Subways, Because I Always See Them [ Mice]. They Are Like My Naguales [kindred Animal Spirits]. They Follow Me. I Have Literally Stepped Off Of A Plane In Phoenix And Gotten My Bag And Stepped Out On The Curb And They'll Be A Big Desert Rat Walking Right In Front Of Me.

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.

I Learn Through Listening And Watching Other Performers That Are Very Good, Like Denise Chávez, Dorothy Allison.

Well, When You're An Immigrant Writer, Or An Immigrant, You're Not Always Welcome To This Country Unless You're The Right Immigrant. If You Have A Mexican Accent, People Look At You Like, You Know, Where Do You Come From And Why Don't You Go Back To Where You Came From? So, Even Though I Was Born In The United States, I Never Felt At Home In The United States. I Never Felt At Home Until I Moved To The Southwest, Where, You Know, There's A Mix Of My Culture With The U.s. Culture, And That Was Why I Lived In Texas For 25 Years.

Instead Of Putting Cheese With Ranchero Sauce, Chile Is Really Very Good For You. If You Put That In, You Get Flavoring, So You're Not Eating Bland Food, Especially If You're Used To Spicy Food.

I Can Get By And Chatter And Talk And Tell Funny Stories, Make People Laugh, But I Don't Have As Many Words, I Don't Have The Vocabulary. I Think If I Forced Myself To Read In Spanish - You Know, I Always Say I'm Going To, But I Lose My Patience Reading In Spanish, Because I Really Do Read The Way A Third Grader Does, Mouthing The Words. That Takes A Long Time!

Once You Can Open Yourself To Joy, You Feel As If You've Transformed Your Sadness Into Illumination, Which Is Really All That Art Is. All We Want To Do Is Transform The Negative Emotions Into Light. We Want To Compost Them Into Light.

That's Why It's Important To Be Multilingual, Because It Teaches You So Much About Your Own Language.

Something I Always Tell Students Is, When You're Writing Something, You Want To Write The First Draft And You Want It To Come Out Easily In The Beginning. If You're Afraid To Say What You Really Have To Say, You Stammer. [...] You're Judging Yourself, You Know, Thinking About Your Listener. You're Not Thinking About What You're Saying. And That Same Thing Happens When You Write.

Thinking About You

Judging Yourself

Now I Feel Life Is Really Short And I Have To Take Care Of Things.

I Don't Want To Blame Anybody, But I Just Want To Tell You That The Process Of Writing Is Antisocial, So On The Days That You Have Something Really Important To Write, Go From Lying Down Directly To Your Notepad Or Your Computer. Do Not Talk.

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."

I Have To Get My Will In Order. I Have To Get The Macondo Foundation Going. I Want To Invest The Money And Resources That I've Gotten From Working So Hard So That It's Shared And It Has Its Life Beyond Me.

I've Been On Television Saying, "¡vamos A La Biblioteca!". That Was Great. Nobody Had Ever Asked Me.

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.

I Think Of Reading As Like A Medicine Cabinet.

The Ideal For Me Is To Mix It Up. When I Have A Writing Workshop, I Like To Have People That Are Anthropologists And People Who Are Poking Around In Other Fields, I Like To Have Them All In The Same Workshop, And Not Worry About Genre.

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.

Sometimes Hearing The Stories Is Going To Change People's Lives Much More Than If They Read It.

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'm A Witch Woman--high On Tobacco And Holy Water. I'm A Woman Delighted With Her Disasters. They Give Me Something To Do. A Profession Of Sorts...i Have The Magic Of Words. The Power To Charm And Kill At Will.

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.

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.

If You're Poor, Potato Chips Are The Food Of Life For You. It's The Caviar.

Mexicans Don't Think Of Ghosts As Haunting You.

There's All Kinds Of Ways To Wean Yourself Off Of Sugar - Because It Is Like An Addiction.

I Don't Close Myself To The Possibility Of Someplace Outside The United States, But It Would Have To Be Someplace With An Indigenous Community, Because That's Where I Feel At Home.

You Can't Erase What You Know. You Can't Forget Who You Are.

My Idea Was Always To Start With A Small Press And Then Move Up To A National Press. I Had Those Goals For My Career From The Time I Was A Very Young Woman. I Wanted To Win A Local Award, Then I Wanted A State Or National Award. Small Press, Big Press. Some Women Fantasize About Their Weddings, Their Husbands, And Children. I Fantasized About What I Wanted To Accomplish With My Books.

We Have All This Courage As Writers, But Then There's This Fear.

I Would Drive On Streets That Were One-way And Think, "why Are They All Honking At Me?"

Writing Poetry Helps Me To Write My Fiction; Each Thing Helps The Other.

When I Was At Home, I Wasn't Shy. I Was The Clown At Home, Because I Was Loved. It Was In The Outside World That I Was Judged And I Wasn't Loved. That Was Very Clear To Me, That I Wasn't Loved. So I Became Very Quiet. You Know, Those Little Girls You See In Those Pictures That Look Like They Want To Hunch, I Was Trying To Disappear Into My Shoulder Blades. The Quietest Person In The Classroom, That Was Me. But That Wasn't Me At Home.

I Was Very Lucky. I Don't Know German, Or Dutch, Or Chinese, Or Thai. I Don't Know Them, So I Can't Judge, So I Have To Go On The Word Of The Publisher That It's A Good Translation.

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.

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.

The House Was Immaculate, As Always, Not A Stray Hair Anywhere, Not A Flake Of Dandruff Or A Crumpled Towel. Even The Roses On The Dining-room Table Held Their Breath. A Kind Of Airless Cleanliness That Always Made Me Want To Sneeze.

But I Deal With This By Meditating And By Understanding I've Been Put On The Planet To Serve Humanity. I Have To Remind Myself To Live Simply And Not Overindulge, Which Is A Constant Battle In A Material World.

I Had A Mother Who Walked To The Library With Me, And You Can't Walk To A Lot Of Libraries In San Antonio Because - Guess What? - There Are No Sidewalks, Except In The Neighborhoods. And They're Across Big Boulevards, And It's So Hot, You Can't Even Walk To The Corner. So Things Like That Affect How Children Can Get To Libraries. So There Are A Lot Of Things Involved.

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.

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.

One Way To Get Very Humble Is To Dedicate The Work You're Going To Do To Your Community.

I Can't Hang Around With Lots Of People These Days Because I Am Hypersensitive. So When I Am Around A Lot Of People Or A Big Roomful Of People I Get Almost Autistic. I Get Overwhelmed And Really Tired. So I Don't Like Being Around Large Groups.

Perhaps The Community You Mentioned Might Not Come To The Story. Sometimes You Have To Take The Story To Them, And Perform It, And That's Another Way That I Get An Alternate Point Of View That Isn't The Official Version Of History Out To A Community. I Feel That's What I've Been Doing Since Caramelo.

Spanish Is A Poetic Language, In Particular The Spanish Of Mexico Which Has A Wonderful Animistic Attitude You Might Not See In The Spanish Of The Peninsula. I Think It Has To Do With The Indigenous Way Of Looking At Nature.

There [dreamtigers By Jorge Luis Borges] Were These Little Fablesque Things, You Know, Dream Tigers, Beautiful, Beautiful Pieces That When You Read Them Had The Power Of A Long Piece, But They Were Prose, And They Had The Power Of Poetry, In That The Last Line Wasn't The End, It Was A Reverberation, Like When You Tap On A Glass Made Of Crystal, And It Goes Ping.

What I Recommend Is This: After You've Talked To Everybody, Go Take A Nap! Take A Nap. Your Body Really Needs To Sleep. It's Like Washing Your Face. If You Can't Afford A Three-hour Nap, Do A One-hour Nap. If You Can't Afford A One-hour Nap, Do Half An Hour. If You Can't Afford Half An Hour, Do Fifteen Minutes.

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!

My Friend, Dennis Mathis, Was Reading Eastern European And Japanese Experimental Writers, And I Brought The Latin American Writers To His Attention, So We Exchanged Books And Bounced Off One Another.

I Have To Take Care Of The House, And The Dogs, And The Macondo Board Meetings, All Those E-mails, The Letters That Are Going To Fans. And You've Got To Pay Bills. These Things Eat Up Your Time. You Have To Prepare And Pack To Go On That Trip. Then When You Come Back You Have To File All That Stuff, Answer All That Mail, And That's Not Even Washing The Clothes Or Any Of That. So It Takes As Many Days As I've Been Away To Come Back To Normal And To Get Quiet.

One Press Account Said I Was An Overnight Success. I Thought That Was The Longest Night I've Ever Spent.

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.

My Trainer Taught Me, Because He's Iranian, And That's A Beautiful Snack [pistachios]. I Have Some With Me, Actually, In My Bag. You Could Eat That On A Plane Instead Of The Salted Nuts. And A Serving Size A Day Is The Size Of Your Hand, Not The Size Of Your Head!

True Love In Mexico Isn't Between Lovers; It's Between A Parent And A Child. Mexico Is A Very Intense Culture Of Sons Adoring Their Mothers, And This Is Why I Claim That Mexican Culture Is Matriarchal. Because The One Constant, Faithful, Inviolable, Holy Love Of Loves - The Love Of Your Life - Is Not Your Wife Or Your Lover; It's Your Mother.

Get Yourself Empty In The Eastern Sense. Not In The Western Sense. In The Western Sense When We Feel Empty We Feel Lonely, Miserable, But In The Eastern Sense - "i'm So Empty, Because I'm Filled With Everything, And I'm Connected To Everything." It's Very Energizing. You Want That Kind Of Emptiness, Whatever You Have To Do To Get Yourself Quiet.

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.

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.

I Feel The Fear Touches On Something Deeper. A Sense Perhaps Of, "my Life Is Speeding Past Me And I Can't Get A Handle On It."

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.

Those Of Us Who Are Writers And Have To Perform To Communities That Aren't Used To Coming To Book Events, I Would Recommend Taking Some Theater.

I Don't Think I'll Write A Large Novel Again Because It Was Like Being In Jail For Me. Even Though That's The Funniest Book I've Ever Written, It Was The Saddest Period Of My Life.

Even Though It's Hard To Believe, But People Who Know Me Really Well Know I'm Shy. I Have To Go Past That Fear.

Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

When I Say What I'm Reading, This Is What I Need. I Know The Ills That Plague Me.

You'll Change. You'll See. Wait Till You Meet Mr. Right.

The Ego's Blocking The Light From Coming.

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.

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.

You Know How They Say, "find Your Voice"? That's Your Voice, In Your Pajamas. And It Doesn't Mean That You're Going To Publish It Or Print It Or People Are Going To See You In Your Pajamas. It Just Means You Are Going To Construct The Foundation In Your Pajamas, In That Voice.

I Think I Didn't Know What I Was Creating, As Much As I Knew What I Didn't Want To Do. And I Didn't Want My Mother's Life. She Was An Unhappy, Frustrated Artist Who Always Dreamed Of A Life That Was Never Going To Be Hers.

Mexico Is Only A Memory Of Childhood Safety.

I Lose Things. I Write Things And They Disappear From My Desk, My Life. I Move A Lot. I Wanted To Gather Them And Put Them Under One Roof, Under One Cover, So I Could Document My Life In A Series Of Snapshots.

I Hope I'm Not Just Looked As A Writer That Is Popular But As A Writer Of Literary Value.

I Began Writing As An Experimental Writer.

Even If We Don't Know If God Exists, We Can Be Certain Love Exists, Because Its Power Transcends Death.

Some People Need Flowers, Some People Need Dandelions. It's Medicine, It's What You Need At That Time In Your Life.

'hispanic' Is English For A Person Of Latino Origin Who Wants To Be Accepted By The White Status Quo. 'latino' Is The Word We Have Always Used For Ourselves.

Challenging The Status Quo

Everything That I Write Comes When It Wants To, Out Of Its Own Need And It Dictates Its Form. I Don't Say, "i Am Going To Write A Novel."

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.

In The Past I Was Very Open And Very Generous, And I Found That It Just Exploded In My Face. A Lot Of People Weren't There For Me When I Needed Them. So I Have Become A Little Shell Shocked. Subsequently Almost Paranoid And Frightened Of People Now. Maybe I'm Losing Out In Meeting Some Marvelous People, But I Am Doing The Only Thing I Can To Save My Spirit.

I Have To Understand What My Strengths And Limitations Are, And Work From A True Place. I Try To Do This As Best I Can While Still Protecting My Writer Self, Which More Than Ever Needs Privacy.

We Changed It To Emocionó, The Way You Say In Spanish, "to Emotion Me" [to Be Moved]. That, As Opposed To "haunt." We Wanted The Feeling Of Sadness And Grief And Obsession, So We Used Emocionó.

San Antonio Drives Me Crazy, But Chicago Drives Me Crazy In A Different Way.

The Ability To Be Present With Every Single Person And Engage Was A Great Model For Me Of The Work That A Writer Needs To Do. Writers, Living Or Dead, Still Guide Me In Many Ways.

Even If You Don't Believe In God, You Have To Believe In Love.

There's A Lot Of People That Need These Stories, And They Can't Come To My Book, So I'm Going To Be The Bookmobile And I'm Going To Come To Them.

I Like To Think About The Bestseller List As, "this Is The Medicine Cabinet Of A Very Sick Country." Let Me Look And See What They're Reading That Isn't Nourishing Them.

You Meditate And Then You Can Put On Your Pajamas, Or You Can Imagine You're Wearing Your Pajamas, And You Talk About Your Piece Of Writing In The Language You Would Use If You Were Wearing Your Pajamas And You Were Seated At A Table With Your Very Good Friend. And You Wouldn't Have To Get All Dressed Up Or Clean Up The Table.

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.

Being On A Highway, All That Speed And Aggression, Is Very Terrifying To Me.

All Of My Works Are Performance Pieces, As Is True For Many Writers Of Color, Writers Who Have Indigenous Roots - Because Our Basis Is Spoken Word.

People Know When You're Speaking From El Corazón. You Have That Pain. Take That Pain And Do Something With It. That's Very Powerful.

I'm Not Afraid To Say What I'm Afraid Of. Does That Make Me Fearless?

I Don't Really Think Our Government At Heart Wants Peace. So I Urge You, Write To Mrs. Laura Bush, Because She Reads.

You Get Good At Being By Yourself And You're Condemned To A Life Sentence Of Solitude. You Think, "wait A Minute! I Should Have Been A Tap Dancer Or Something". But In My Life, I Feel Like I Take My Stories To People Orally.

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.

And The Nice Thing About Writing A Novel Is You Take Your Time, You Sit With The Character Sometimes Nine Years, You Look Very Deeply At A Situation, Unlike In Real Life When We Just Kind Of Snap Something Out.

[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 Am Not In Touch With Other Writers. I Don't Have Very Much Contact With Other Writers. I Don't Get Invited To These Things Or I Don't Go To Them. I Hate Panels. I Speak To Librarians And To Conferences Of English Teachers. That's What I Do: Teachers And Librarians. And High School Kids.

I Grew Up With This Kind Of Grocery Store That Caters To The Poor. They Serve You The Worst Food.

Maybe All Pain In The World Requires Poetry.

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.

You Don't Want Somebody Who Doesn't Know His Own Heart, Do You? You'll Find Someone Who's Brave Enough To Love You. Someday. One Day. Not Today.

Revenge Only Engenders Violence, Not Clarity And True Peace. I Think Liberation Must Come From Within.

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.

Afterwards, People Come And Say, "i Felt Like You Said That Just To Me. What You Said Is Something I'm Going Through Right Now," So You Know That Spiritual Connection Is Going On.

How Can Art Make A Difference In The World?

Making A Difference

[writing Is Like Fishing]. You Don't Bow Because You Made The Fish. That's The Difference. If You Know That, Then You Bow For Your Labor.you Crafted, You Worked, You Put In Those Hours So That You Could Catch That Fish. But You Didn't Make That Fish. You Just Caught The Fish. That Will Help You Stay Humble And Bow For The Right Reason And Be Very Lucid About The Work You Do.

I Think People Are Much More Concerned About Money Now. There Aren't The Big Advances Of The Past. You Feel The Sense Of Nervousness About The Book Industry. It's Not Like Before. Not That I Knew Very Much About What It Was Like Because I Was A Newcomer To It, But I Get That Feeling That People Are More Conservative In Their Book Choices And What They Are Going To Publish And What's A Sure Sell. As Opposed To - Just Like In The Economy - A Sense Of Luxury And Sense Of Risk Taking Ten Years Ago.

Something I Always Tell Students Is, When You're Writing Something, You Want To Write The First Draft And You Want It To Come Out Easily In The Beginning. If You're Afraid To Say What You Really Have To Say, You Stammer. When You're Thinking Of Your Listener, That's When You Start Stuttering And It's Just Because You're Nervous That Your Listener Is Passing Judgment.

Thinking Of You

As An Artist, I Have To Be The Ambassador Of Everything.

The Stories Are What No One Wants To Talk About. So You Make Up A Story Because No One Is Going To Tell You The Truth.

Why Don't We Have People Like Thich Nhat Hanh Or Marshall Rosenberg And Nelson Mandela Solving Violent Situations In A Peaceful Way?

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky.

Flipping A Coin

One Of The Things We Learned From That Panel Is The Way Poor Communities Use A Library Is Very Different From Wealthy Communities. But The Way The Library Books Are Measured Are By How Many Books Are Taken Out. And People In Poor Communities Sometimes Won't Take The Book Out Because They're Afraid To. They're Afraid Of Losing It And Not Being Able To Replace It.

I Feel Comfortable In Spanish, I Chat Like A Parrot, But I Don't Have The Confidence In Spanish That I Do In English.

There Are Two Things You Need To Ask For, To Open Up That Channel, So You Get The Light. One Is Humility, Because Our Ego Is Always Going To Block That Guidance, And So You Ask For Humility.and The Second Thing You're Going To Ask For Is Courage, Because What You're Going To Be Asked To Do Is Bigger Than What You Think You Can Do.

My Spanish Is A Daughter's Spanish. I Write, But My Spanish Really Is Very Limited.

If You're Going To Write About The River, You've Got To Get In.

I Never Paid Attention When People Said, "that's Gotta Be Poetry. That's Gotta Be Fiction," Except When I Was In A Graduate Program, And You Had To Claim Your Genre.

The Tsa Tears Through Your Bags At The Airport And The Nsa Watches What Books You Buy And What You Say Over The Telephone And Online. It Doesn't Feel Like Anything Is Private Anymore.

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."

Catholicism Believes In The Virgen De Guadalupe. The Mother Of God Is Worshipped, Especially In Latin America. I Find Her Very Empowering. I Find That The Virgen De Guadalupe Allowed Me To Return To Parts Of My Upbringing I Had Disregarded.

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?

The Truth Has A Strange Way Of Following You, Of Coming Up To You And Making You Listen To What It Has To Say.

When I Have A Writing Workshop, I Like To Have People That Are Anthropologists And People Who Are Poking Around In Other Fields, I Like To Have Them All In The Same Workshop, And Not Worry About Genre. 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. Or 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.

Heartbreak Makes Us Stronger; It's An Opportunity For Spiritual Growth. How Can You Understand Someone Else's Pain If You Have Not Yourself Suffered?

The World We Live In Is A House On Fire And The People We Love Are Burning.

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.

The Mexico - United States Border Was Always Porous. People Have Been Going And Coming Back Since Before The Spaniards Arrived. Now We're Seeing Communities Who Have Family Members On The Other Side Very Frightened. I Feel Saddened For Those Families Divided By Violence. The Whole Border Area Is Under Siege.

The Devil Knows More From Experience Than From Being The Devil

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.

The Border Between The Dead And The Living, If You're Mexican, Doesn't Exist. The Dead Are Part Of Your Life. Like My Dad, Who's Not Here, But He's Here.that's Why There's The Day Of The Dead. There's Such A Connection With The Dead.

You Know How Women Have This Clock When They Want To Have A Baby? I Had This Clock Where I Wanted To Win A National Award By Thirty, Be At A Big Press By Thirty-five. I Was Always Working With These Self-driven Goals.

People Paused To Listen To Denise Chávez And She Had Them - With Gum On Her Shoes, She Had Them. She Said She Stepped On Gum When She Came Up To The Stage And She Couldn't Move, So She Had To Stay In One Spot Otherwise People Would See The Chiclet.

I Had To Learn Quick, Because I Was Performing In Cinco De Mayo Festivals With Babies Crying And People Lifting Their Beers, And You Know The Feather Dancers Would Come, And They'd Say, "what Are You, A Poet? You're Next".

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.

There's No Perfect Place, There's No Wonderful Utopia.

We Tend To Think Of Orphans As Being The Protagonist Of Stories We Read When We're Kids, And Yet Here You Are: You're An Adult, You're Supposed To Manage, You're Supposed To Get Over It, You're Supposed To Go On With Your Life, And You Feel Like A Lost Child.

Bricks Are Crumbling In Places, And The Front Door Is So Swollen You Have To Push Hard To Get In

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 . . ."

I'm Filled With A New Joy Mixed With Old Grief.

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.

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.

What You're Going To Be Asked To Do Is Bigger Than What You Think You Can Do. It's Always Bigger Than What You Think You Can Handle, But You're Never Going To Be Given Something You Can't Handle.

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.

I Think No Matter What You Do You Can't Please Everybody. You Have To Ask Yourself, "did I Do What I Set Out To Do?"

"you're Next, After The Feather Dancers." And You Had To Get Their Attention, Because Otherwise People Would Go, "oh, A Poet." You Really Have To Learn.

I Don't Just Want To Talk To The Choir. I Want To Sit Down And Be Respectful Of The People Who Are Most Unlike Me, To Get Them To Hear Me And Think. It Doesn't Mean You're Going To Change Them Right There, But Just So They Can Hear You And What You're Saying.

That's All You Have To Ask From Yourself Writing A Book. That It's The Best You Can Do And That You Did It Without Any Ego Involved And That You Did It For Somebody Else. That's The Best You Can Do.

I Know There Are A Lot Of Women Who Are Afraid Of Driving On Highways.

I Do Travel A Lot, Because I Need Oxygen, I Need To Go To Places To Meet People Who Aren't Upset At Me Because I'm Asking For Peace.

By Community I Mean That Community You Have A Special Vision For, That Only You See, That No One Else In A Room Sees. That Special Community In Pain, That Through A Pain You've Suffered, You're Able To Have That Vision, That Super-ray Vision.

I Wish Somebody Had Told Me Love Does Not Die, That We Can Continue To Receive And Give Love After Death.

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.

There Are Many Latino Writers As Talented As I Am, But Because We Are Published Through Small Presses, Our Books Don't Count. We Are Still The Illegal Aliens Of The Literary World.

I Also Learned To Tell A Story. I Think I Learned From Poetry How To Time A Story. Poetry's Timing, Beats And Pauses. That White Space On The Page Is As Important As The Black. The Bottom Of The Page Is Blackout. It's Performance.

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."

Books Are Medicine And You Have To Take The Right Medicine That You Need At That Moment Or That Day Or That Time In Your Life.

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.

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.

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."

We Started An Organization That's The Only Sub-organization Of The Macarthur Foundation And We Are Called The Macarturos. Usually When I Win Something, I'm The Only One Of My Ethnicity To Get It, But This Time I Met All These Latinos, And I Was So Excited. I'd Meet Someone And I'd Go, [...] "can You Come To San Antonio?" And They'd Go, "oh Yeah." [...] And Suddenly I Had Twelve People That Said They Would Come. And I Didn't Know How It Was Going To Be. And That's How The Macarturos Became A Reality, Where These Very Generous Geniuses Come To San Antonio And Work Together.

You Have To Remember That Writing Itself Is So Solitary. You Start Writing Because You're Lonely.

I Think That We Need To Measure How We Give Dollars To Libraries By Need. And The Communities That Are Poor, In My Opinion, Should Get More Because You Have To Do More Outreach.

My Mom Was A Frustrated Woman, Like So Many Unhappy Women Who Didn't Get The Opportunities They Wanted.

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.

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.

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.

It Takes A Long Time For Women To Feel It's Alright To Be Chingona. To Aspire To Be A Chingona!...you Are Saying, 'this Is My Camino, This Is My Path And I'm Gonna Follow It, Regardless Of What Culture Says.' I Don't Think The Church Likes Chingonas. I Don't Think The State Likes Chingonas.! And Fathers Definitely Do Not Like Chingonas. And Boyfriends Don't Like Chingonas. But, You Know, I Remain Optimistic. I Will Meet A Man Who Likes A Chingona, One Day. One Day, My Chingon Will Come.

I Realize That It's Like Spices In The Kitchen. I Need That Turmeric. I'm Sorry, But Cinnamon Isn't Going To Substitute . I Feel That I Can Teach My Listener About A New Word They Can Use Too. "well, What Words Are Part Of My Own Community, Even If I'm Monolingual, That I'm Not Allowing Myself To Use In A Public Sphere?"

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