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.

-Sandra Cisneros

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Many Books That You

Sandra Cisneros

Topic

Art

Real

Book

More From Sandra Cisneros

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.

Media

Speaks Out

Scary

You Know, You Want To Be Outrageous When You're Young, So All The Young People Say, "oooh . . ." Now My Tactics Are Different.

People

Different

Tactics

I Think Of Reading As Like A Medicine Cabinet.

Reading

Thinking

Medicine

The Beauty Of Literature Is You Allow Readers To See Things Through Other Peoples Eyes. All Good Books Do This.

Book

Eye

Literature

To Me, The Virgen De Guadalupe Is Just A Vessel For Me To Recognize My Own God Within Myself.

Guadalupe

My Own

Vessel

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.

Rome

Important

Climate

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.

Writing

Stories

Littles

Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

Mines

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

Jobs

Thinking

Want

You Were Given That Pain And That Vision Because You Have Something To Do With It.

Pain

Vision

Given

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?"

Thinking

Matter

Please

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.

Moving

Shoes

People

There Are A Few Of The Authors That I Think Have Made A Great Big Impact On My Life. The Way I Used To Do Things When I Was Younger Was More About Being Outrageous, And There Was A Lot Of Ego Involved In That.

Thinking

Impact

Ego

You Know How Sometimes You're Talking To People Who Love You And Give You Unconditional Love, And You Say, "but You Know What? Let Me Back Up. I Forgot To Say . . ."you Can Do That, Right? You Don't Hesitate And Say, "oh My God! I Forgot To Say That!". You Just Speak! And You Say It All, Until You Have Nothing More To Say. And That's Your First Draft. It's Done.

Love You

Unconditional Love

Talking

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.

Art

Sadness

Light

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.

Two

People

Mexican

People Want You To Be The Ambassador Of Everything. This Happens To Me Especially When I Go To Europe. I Have To Be The Ambassador Of Everything. I Learned This From Elena Poniatowska - Intelligent Woman, Great Lady, One Of My Heroes, One Of My Spiritual Mentors, I Love Her. Someone Is In This Big Museum And They Ask Her, "elenita, What Do You Think About Mexican Women . . ." And She Says, "i Haven't A Clue!"

Spiritual

Hero

Intelligent

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

Writing

Fiction

Helping

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.

Country

Home

Texas

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.

Write About What Makes You Different.

Inspiration

Writing

Different

You Know How Sometimes You Meet Writers That Are So Full Of Themselves? They Feel Really Proud That They Wrote Something . But What They Don't Understand - And I Like To Tell This To Writers - Is That Writing Is Like Fishing. It's Just Like Fishing. If You Don't Fish That Often, You're Not Going To Catch That Many Fish.

Writing

Fishing

Proud

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.

Country

Children

Europe

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

Writing

Want

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.

Being Yourself

Thinking

Should Have

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.

Sauce

Cheese

Eating

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.

Thinking

Giving

Community

I Am A Woman, And I Am A Latina. Those Are The Things That Make My Writing Distinctive. Those Are The Things That Give My Writing Power.

Writing

Giving

Latina

Marshall Rosenberg Talks About How We Can Create Peace In The Communities We Work With. He's Been Traveling To Warring Nations To Create Peace Within Those Countries.

Country

Community

Peace Within

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.

People

Community

Mexico

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.

Years

Mexico

Used

I'm Learning A Lot By Reading Teachers Like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron. They Teach Me Because I Feel Like I Have A Responsibility To The Communities That I Speak To.

Teacher

Reading

Responsibility

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.

Mother

Artist

Thinking

Perhaps The Greatest Challenge Has Been Trying To Keep My Time To Myself And My Private Life Private In Order To Do My Job. Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

Jobs

Order

Challenges

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

Eye

Mirrors

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.

Mean

Humanity

Trying

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

Mexican

Latina

Certain

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.

Dad

Mexican

Connections

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

Real

Late

Drivers

We Need To Write Because So Many Of Our Stories Are Not Being Heard. Where Could They Be Heard In This Era Of Fear And Media Monopolies? Writing Allows Us To Transform What Has Happened To Us And To Fight Back Against What's Hurting Us. While Not Everyone Is An Author, Everyone Is A Writer And I Think That The Process Of Writing Is Deeply Spiritual And Liberatory.

Spiritual

Hurt

Writing

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

Humble

Community

Way

You Don't Have To Be The Specialist On Everything. You Can Try To Inform Yourself.

Trying

Specialists

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.

Mean

Language

Plant

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

Artist

Ambassadors

How Can Art Make A Difference In The World?

Art

Differences

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.

Humble

Writing

Fishing

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.

Use

Fancy

Suitcases

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.

Country

Reading

Thinking

Every Single House Has Had Death Visit.

House

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

Listening

Very Good

Performers

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.

People

Fusion

Different

I Remember When They Started Publishing Latino Fiction Years Ago. You Had To Be Really Good To Get Published. Now You Don't Have To Be That Good.

Years

Fiction

Remember

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.

Girl

Mean

Light

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?

Writing

People

Giving

It's So Good For Your Health To Take Those Naps. I Don't Know Why People Brag That They Sleep Five Hours. I'd Be Ashamed. I'm Proud That I Sleep Nine Hours.

Sleep

Naps

People

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.

Mother

Father

Writing

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.

Beautiful

Spiritual

Morning

[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.

Book

Reading

Buddhism

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.

Book

Writing

Thinking

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.

Husband

Children

Book

I've Always Read Broadly: Literary Fiction, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Chick Lit, Historical, Dystopian, Nonfiction, Memoir. I've Even Read Westerns. I Prefer Female Protagonists.

Historical

Nonfiction

Female

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

Grief

Joy

Filled

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.

Giving

Water

Magic

If You Know Two Cultures And Two Languages, That Intermediate Place, Where The Two Don't Perfectly Meet, Is Really Interesting.

Two

Interesting

Culture

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.

Pain

Mean

Community

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

Pain

Humble

Mean

I Remember I Was Very Taken With A Book Called Dreamtigers By [jorge Luis] Borges. He Was At The University Of Texas, Austin, And They Collected Some Of His Writings And Put Them In A Little Collection. It's Called Dreamtigers In English, But It Doesn't Exist In Spanish. It's A Little Sampler. But That Collection In English Is What Struck Me, Because In There He Has His Poems, And I Was A Poet As Well As A Fiction Writer.

Book

Taken

Writing

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.

Views

Community

Might

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.

Hair

Rose

House

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.

Stories

Want

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.

Beautiful

Flower

Fall

I'm Just As Unhappy About San Antonio As I Was About Chicago. If You're Unhappy About Certain Things, You're Unhappy Everywhere.

Unhappy

Chicago

San Antonio

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.

Beautiful

Powerful

Intelligent

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".

Baby

Beer

People

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.

Mother

Children

Library

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.

Book

World

Aliens

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.

Color

Roots

Pieces

[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.

Writing

Trying

Stories

I'm From Chicago, So The Chicago Working-class Poets Still Mean A Great Deal To Me.

Mean

Class

Chicago

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.

Spiritual

People

Connections

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.

Writing

Mixing

Different

You Know, If You've Got Nine People That You've Got To Get A Treat For - Because You Do Have Sweet Food, Even If You're Poor - You Can't Go Out And Buy A Sara Lee Cake. You Buy The Big Bag Of Cookies, Those Chocolate And Vanilla Ones With The Icing. That Has A Lot Of Trans Fat In It, But It Goes A Long Way With A Lot Of People.

Sweet

Cake

Long

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

Book

Terrible

Terror

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.

Judging

Chinese

Goes On

Everything Is Holding Its Breath Inside Me. Everything Is Waiting To Explode Like Christmas. I Want To Be All New And Shiny. I Want To Sit Out Bad At Night, A Boy Around My Neck And The Wind Under My Skirt. Not This Way, Every Evening Talking To The Trees, Leaning Out My Window, Imagining What I Can't See.

Boys

Night

Talking

Every Book Changes My Writing Because I'm Always Trying To Do Something I Didn't Do Before. I Try To Do What's Hard For Me, What I Haven't Done In The Past.

Book

Writing

Past

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.

Baby

Winning

Awards

The Devil Knows More From Experience Than From Being The Devil

Life

Devil

Knows

I Prefer To Go To The Little Towns Now, Because In Little Towns People Are Kind. I Like Going To Tepotzlán.

People

Littles

Towns

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.

Artist

Rights

People

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

Important

Language

Teach

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

Mom

Opportunity

Frustrated

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.

Pain

Powerful

People

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.

Book

Thinking

Past

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.

Airports

Cities

Mexico

I Know The American Library Association Has Models For Working With The Poor. They Do Have That, And I Think That We Really Need To Put Our Efforts - If We Want To Think Long-range And Invest In The Community So That We Don't Have To, You Know, Invest In Prisons - Into Making A Change, Because I Know That The Library Can Make A Change In A Life, Because It Made A Change In Mine.

Thinking

Long

Effort

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.

People

Attention

Stories

I Want To Thank You, Especially Those People Who Are Agnostic Or Atheist. I Don't Mean Any Offense By The Things I Said Of The Spirit World. Thank You For Allowing Me To Speak About The Spiritual, Because I Can't Talk About My Life Or Writing Without Mentioning That.

Spiritual

Atheist

Mean

Post 9/11, We've Seen Such Disastrous Policies On The Border. I Live Two And A Half Hours Away From The Border, And I've Seen Changes For The Communities There. I Feel Like It's An Occupied Zone. We're Losing Our Rights, And Both Sides Of The Border Are Terrified. The Mexican Population And The U.s. Population Are United In Fear.

Two

Rights

Community

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.

Teacher

Hate

Kids

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."

Book

Reading

Humble

When I Lost My Father, I Thought I Learned About Grief And Transition. However, Nobody Tells You What It's Like To Lose Your Mother. They Don't Tell You That You're Going To Feel Like An Orphan At Whatever Age You Are As An Adult.

Mother

Father

Grief

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.

Teaching

Space

Years

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

Daughter

Writing

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.

Book

Medicine

Needs

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

Addiction

Sugar

Way

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.

Community

Gasoline

Buying

I Think My Family And Closest Friends Are Learning About My Need To Withdraw, And I Am Learning How To Restore And Store My Energy To Both Serve The Community To The Best Of My Ability And To Serve My Writer's Heart.

Heart

Thinking

Community

I Didn't Intend To Be Writing - The Writer's Life. I Was Just Writing What Came To Me At The Time, But It Is A Map Of How This Writer Had To Break Many Barriers To Find, Not A Room Of Her Own, But A House Of Her Own.

Writing

House

Maps

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

Speed

Aggression

Highways

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.

Spiritual

Thinking

Missing

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.

Girl

Home

Trying

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

Mr Right

Waiting

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.

Sleep

Naps

Half

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.

Book

Taken

People

The Good Thing About Dennis [ Mathis] Is, Even Though He's A White, He Respected That I Was Doing Something Quirky With My English. He Loved It When I Would Mix Up The Americanisms And Say, "that's Water Over The Dam."

White

Water

Quirky

I Can't Do A Linear Novel. I'm Just Going To Write What I Need To Write.

Writing

Needs

Linear

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.

Self

Trying

Needs

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.

Writing

Buttons

Fiction

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."

Past

Life Is

Deeper

I Usually Meditate And I Call My Spirit Allies - Anyone In The Spirit World That I've Got Connections With. Even In The Spirit World You Need Connections!

Allies

Connections

Needs

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.

Art

Writing

Opportunity

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

Fearless

Doe

Not Afraid

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.

Thinking

Eggs

Oil

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.

Tired

People

Groups

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.

Mother

Children

Son

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.

Community

Healthy

Use

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.

Reading

Color

People

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

Writing

Mexico

Want

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.

Believe

Past

People

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

Writing

Rivers

Ifs

I Am One Who Leaves The Table Like A Man, Without Putting Back The Chair Or Picking Up The Plate

Men

Tables

Chairs

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

Values

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.

Moving

Writing

Snapshots

I Was Reading All These Male Writers Who Were Doing Wild And Wonderful Things. It Gave Me Permission To Experiment.

Reading

Males

Wonderful

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky.

Beach

Sky

Flipping A Coin

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.

Vegetables

Years

People

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

Lonely

Writing

Remember

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.

Dream

Real

Book

As Indigenous Peoples, We Know There Is More To The World. We Know Spirits Exist. We Know As Women, Because We're Especially Attuned To This Kind Of Knowledge, That Spirits Exist And Have A Presence In Our Lives. Some Of Us Are Gifted And Can Communicate With The Spirit World. Not Everyone Has That Gift And Can Perceive The Borders Between The Living And The Dead And Our Society Actively Discourages Us Of Exploring The Knowledge Of What Many Of Us Have Already Always Known In Our Cultures.

Borders

Culture

World

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?

Spiritual

Pain

Opportunity

Each Book Gets Harder, Each Book Gets Harder And Harder. I Always Feel Like Crying When I Have To Write.

Book

Writing

Cry

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

Night

Self Respect

Said

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.

Brother

Thinking

Practice

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

Thinking

Way

Honking

"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.

People

Dancer

Attention

I Feel Like I Am In A Box Of Bees When I Am In A Room With Lots Of People And I'm Just Looking For The Door. I Find Myself Getting More And More Agoraphobic As Time Goes On.

Doors

People

Goes On

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.

Order

Foundation

Want

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.

Writing

Thinking About You

Judging Yourself

I Was Interested In Cross-pollinating The Two. I Thought There Was Something Lovely In The Little Vignette Forms. I Wanted To Explore That.

Two

Lovely

Vignettes

I Believe Love Is Always Eternal. Even If Eternity Is Only Five Minutes.

Love

Believe

Eternity

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.

Writing

Worry

People

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.

Home

Community

United States

To Tell You The Truth, I Think It's About That We Shouldn't Get Our Driver's Licenses Till Real Late In Life.

Real

Thinking

Late

When You're In That State Of Grief, Any Little Breeze, Any Hello, Any Confrontation, Any Grazing Of Someone Meeting Your Eyes, Might Cause You Suddenly To Burst Into Grief. You Could Be Looking At A Jar Of Peanut Butter In The Supermarket, And Then Start Crying.

Grief

Eye

Littles

I Look At Thich Nhat Hanh And I Look At Marshall Rosenberg, And They're More Concerned About The Long Range. And That Long Range Means That You Have To Sit Down With People Who Don't Think Like You. I Want To Reach People Who Don't Think Like Me.

Mean

Thinking

Long

Before You Speak, Get Very Quiet, Do The Meditation, Say, "use Me As A Channel For What Needs To Get Said To This Community. This Community Needs To Hear Something Very Important That I'm The Only Person In The Room Who Can Say It. Please Help Open Me So That I'm Not Frightened And Speak Through Me. Let Me Be That Channel So That I Can Help Heal." You Make Yourself So Humble That You Really Are Like A Flute And That Music That Comes Out Comes From El Corazón. All The People You're Connected To From That Light That We Call Love.

Humble

Light

People

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.

Beautiful

Dream

Glasses

The Older I Get, The More I'm Conscious Of Ways Very Small Things Can Make A Change In The World. Tiny Little Things, But The World Is Made Up Of Tiny Matters, Isn't It?

When Your Writing Is Unselfconscious, When It Comes From Your Heart, That's When It's Powerful.

Powerful

Writing

Heart

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.

Love You

Heart

Brave

I Just Feel That The East And The West Are Two Different Worlds. I Sometimes Get Saddened When I See That Very Few Writers Of Color Are Published Or Reviewed In East Coast Presses And Magazines.

Two

Color

World

When I Was Writing Caramelo The Last Couple Of Years, A Sixty-hour Work Week Was Normal. And Now I'm Lucky If I Have Eight Hours.

Couple

Writing

Years

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.

Country

Animal

Camping

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.

Thinking

White

Space

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.

Dream

Talking

People

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!

Rome

Squash

Saws

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

Forget

Erase

Knows

'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.

White

Challenging The Status Quo

Want

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

Buddhist

Real

Attention

We Are Told By Media - Books, Television, Reality Shows - That Heartbreak Is This Terrible Thing And Yet We Should Seek It. We're Told That Heartbreak Is All About Love And We Should Just Go After That High Over And Over Again. We Are Told It Is Healthy To Be Addicted To This Kind Of Behavior And The Highs Associated With Love. But, That's Not All What Heartbreak Is.

Book

Reality

Media

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.

Sweet

Hate

Thinking

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?"

Sorry

Community

Kitchen

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.

Real

Nice

Character

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.

Writing

Giving

People

Mom Used To Walk With Me For Something Like Two Or Three Miles To Get To The Day-old Bakery. They Had Those Machines Where You Buy Doughnuts, Those Vending Machines With The Long Johns And Doughnuts. We Would Buy Those Bagels And Pastries Because That Was Our Treat. And Come Back With Shopping Bags Of These Sweets, And Who Knows What Was In It? That Was What We Could Afford That Could Feed That Many People.

Mom

Sweet

Shopping

When You Have Your Heart Broken Wide, You Are Also Open To Things Of Beauty As Well As Things Of Sadness. Once People Are Not Here Physically, The Spiritual Remains, We Still Connect, We Can Communicate, We Can Give And Receive Love And Forgiveness. There Is Love After Someone Dies.

Spiritual

Sadness

Heart

Generally If You're A Daughter In A Mexican Family, No One Wants To Tell You Anything; They Tell You The Healthy Lies About Your Family.

Daughter

Lying

Mexican

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.

Book

People

Stories

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.

Land

People

May

If You Just Breathe, And Go Slower, You Will Have Enough Energy. It's Really Important Because There Are People Who Wait In Line, And Your Work Has Changed Their Lives. You Will Need To Listen To Them Because They Are Also Going To Feed You And Give You Confirmation Of The Prayer You Asked Before You Spoke.

Prayer

Giving

People

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.

Country

Cousin

Growing Up

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

People

Peaceful

Way

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.

Children

Thinking

Long

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

Men

Feminist

Feminism

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.

Important

Culture

Imagine

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.

Thinking

Bigger

Given

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.

People

Giving

Listening

Mexico Is Only A Memory Of Childhood Safety.

Memories

Safety

Childhood

My Virgen De Guadalupe Is Not The Mother Of God. She Is God. She Is A Face For A God Without A Face, An Indigena For A God Without Ethnicity, A Female Deity For A God Who Is Genderless, But I Also Understand That For Her To Approach Me, For Me To Finally Open The Door And Accept Her, She Had To Be A Woman Like Me.

Mother

Doors

Ethnicity

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

Writing

Heart

Thinking

If You Have Potato Chips, That Means, "who's Coming Over?"wealthy People - White People Who're Wealthy - Have A Bag Of Potato Chips That's Folded Over With A Clip. "what? There's Some Left Over?" In My House, If There Was A Bag Of Potato Chips, We'd Pour It In A Bowl And Everybody Would Just Dip In Till It Was Gone.

Mean

White

People

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.

Men

White

People

I Think There's Some Great Stuff Coming. I Do Feel That. I Think We Have Reached Our Harlem Renaissance.

Thinking

Renaissance

Stuff

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.

Mean

Voice

People

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.

Atheist

Agnostic

Celebrate

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

Television

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.

Book

Writing

Ego

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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