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.

-Sandra Cisneros

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When I Was At

Sandra Cisneros

Topic

Girl

Home

Trying

More From Sandra Cisneros

I Was One Of Those People Raised By A Woman Who Was What I Call A Prisoner Of War. She Was Captured, She Didn't Want To Be There, She Was Unhappy, She Was Banging Away In The Kitchen, The Way That A Prisoner Would Bang On Her Jail Cell, You Know, Really Unhappy. She Had To Cook For Nine People With Really Little Money, So She Really Just Got Burned Out. So I Didn't Know That You Could Actually Cook And It Would Be Calming, Pleasurable.

War

Cells

Jail

[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

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

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

Love

Believe

Eternity

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

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

Kind

Poor

Grew Up

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

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

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

Writing

Rivers

Ifs

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 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

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

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

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.

Latin

Book

Reading

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.

Lonely

Want

Emptiness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two

Interesting

Culture

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

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

To This Day, On My Cheat Days From My Diet, Which Are New Year's Eve And My Birthday, I Buy Luxury Foods That Are Very Indicative Of My Class.

New Year

Years

Class

Mexicans Don't Think Of Ghosts As Haunting You.

Thinking

Haunting

Ghost

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

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

Every Writer I Admire Is My Teacher. If You Look At It, And If You Care To Read Carefully Enough And To Read And Reread A Text, You Teach Yourself Something About Craft.

Teacher

Looks

Crafts

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

My Weapon Has Always Been Language, And I've Always Used It, But It Has Changed. Instead Of Shaping The Words Like Knives Now, I Think They're Flowers, Or Bridges.

Flower

Thinking

Knives

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

People

Littles

Towns

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

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

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

Addiction

Sugar

Way

I Don't Know What The Definition Of A Short Story Is, And I Don't Even Care To Answer That Question. That's Something Somebody In Academia Would Think About. I Just Want To Tell A Story, And If People Listen, And If It Stays With You, It's A Story.

Thinking

People

Want

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

Reading

Males

Wonderful

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

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

Up To You

Way

Strange

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

Thinking

Way

Honking

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

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

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

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.

Book

Thinking

Acquisition

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

Listening

Very Good

Performers

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

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

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

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

Write About What Makes You Different.

Inspiration

Writing

Different

One Of The Books That Has Guided Me In The Last Ten Years Of My Life To Help Me To Be That Leader Is The Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace. He's A Vietnamese Monk. He Was Nominated For A Peace Prize By Dr. Martin Luther King.

Buddhist

Kings

Book

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!

Reading

Thinking

Vocabulary

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 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

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

The Most Powerful Speaking You Can Do Is The Speaking That Comes From Your Heart And Your Love.

Powerful

Heart

Most Powerful

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.

Block

Humility

Thinking

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

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

Daughter

Writing

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

The Devil Knows More From Experience Than From Being The Devil

Life

Devil

Knows

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.

Past

People

Littles

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.

Healthy

Thanks

Mets

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

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!

Beautiful

Hands

Snacks

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

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

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

When You Speak Words That Are Relevant To People, They Automatically Shut Up And You Know You Are In The Presence Of Some Very Magical Words. It's A Gift When Someone Can Listen And Be Quiet And Not Interrupt.

People

Quiet

Speak

When You Edit, You Imagine Your Enemy Is Seated On The Other Side Of The Table. Your Enemy! And Your Enemy Is Going To Read That With A Viciousness, Because He Knows Where You Didn't Work On It. He's Going To Shake It And Really Aim For That Jugular. So You Are Going To Polish, And Revise, And Rewrite, And Cut Out, And Shape It, So That Your Enemy Has No Place To Grip It. That's How You Revise.

Cutting

Enemy

Shapes

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

[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.

Unique

Mexican

Syntax

One Of The Things Thich Nhat Hanh Taught Me: He Says, "when You're In A Hurry, Go Slower." That Works Every Time, Unless You're Trying To Catch A Plane.

Trying

Taught

Planes

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

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

Mr Right

Waiting

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

Fearless

Doe

Not Afraid

That's What You Need For Your Writing - To Learn How To Be Present, Learn How To Be Calm. So Take That Nap, Do That Meditation.

Writing

Naps

Meditation

My Book Would Come Out In One Language, Then It Would Come Out In Another Language, Then It Would Come Out In One City, One Read, And I Was Always Being Called Away From My Desk.

Book

Cities

Language

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

I Feel That I Can Teach My Listener About A New Word They Can Use Too.

Use

Teach

Feels

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speed

Aggression

Highways

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

Maybe All Pain In The World Requires Poetry.

Pain

World

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

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

Mexico Is Only A Memory Of Childhood Safety.

Memories

Safety

Childhood

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

Perfect

Wonderful

Utopia

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 People Should Read Fairy Tales, Because Were Hungry For A Mythology That Will Speak To Our Fears.

Thinking

Fairy Stories

People

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

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.

People

Attention

Fiction

I'm Most Tired After I Read, After I've Just Done A Performance, But What I Try To Do Is To Fuel And Eat A Really Healthy Meal Before I Perform. I Want To Have Enough Energy To Talk To That Last Person.

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

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

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.

Mother

Thinking

Say Anything

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

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 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

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."

Father

Sound

Example

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

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

Parrots

Feels

Comfortable

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

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

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.

Mother

Latin

Believe

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

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

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.

Too Much

Needs

Students

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.

Book

Light

Class

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

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

Powerful

Writing

Heart

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

Writing

Needs

Linear

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

Thinking

Renaissance

Stuff

I Am Obsessed With Becoming A Woman Comfortable In Her Skin.

Skins

Becoming A Woman

Obsessed

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?

World

Littles

Matter

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

'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

I Was The Kind Of Person That Was Very Social And Liked To Be With An Entourage And Have Lots Of Parties And Have People Around Me. And Now I Find I Am Much More Satisfied Seeing People One-on-one. I Avoid Crowds, And I Get Really Plagued By People As If They Are Bees Or Something. I Am Talking About My Friends. I Can Only Handle Them One At A Time.

Party

Talking

People

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

Book

Eye

Literature

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

Caviar

Potato Chips

Potatoes

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

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

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

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

Book

Terrible

Terror

Friends Started Saying, "oh, Don't Come. No Vengas. It's Dangerous For Us, And We Live Here." Then There's Also The Issue, If You Go Back, And You Happen To Be Mexican-american, You Get Treated Very Differently [in Mexico] Than If You're Blond. If You Say Something Wrong, They Say, "why Don't You Learn Your Mother Tongue?"

Mother

Issues

Mexican

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.

Book

Airports

Tsa

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.

Book

Crowns

Want

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

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.

Art

Children

Flower

You Know That You Wouldn't Take A Baby On A Plane Without Diapers, So When You Leave Your House, Take Care Of You, Like You Would A Baby. Don't Leave Your House Without Packing Some Healthy Things.

Baby

House

Healthy

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

You Know, We Should Have Cards Like The Deaf Have. "can't Talk, I'm Writing Today."

Writing

Should Have

Today

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.

Art

Real

Book

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

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 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.

Different

Fiction

Kind

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

[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 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'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 . . ."

Balance

Body

Calmness

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

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

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky.

Beach

Sky

Flipping A Coin

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

Care

Life Is

Really Short

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

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

Television

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

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.

Believe

Naps

Three

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

Trying

Specialists

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.

Teacher

Italian

Class

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

The Thoughts Of Letting Go Of Everything I Love Overwhelms Like A Tsunami Of Sorrow.

Letting Go

Sorrow

Tsunami

When I Was Very Young I Was Reading A Lot Of Latin American Fiction, Which Later Would Be Called "boom Fiction."

Latin

Reading

Would Be

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 Was Reading Carl Sandburg And Gwendolyn Brooks, And I'm Still Very, Very Deeply Moved By Gwendolyn Brooks's Life And Her Work.

Reading

Brooks

Very Deep

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

Imagine Americans Who Go To Paris. Why Would You Want To Go Where Someone's Going To Disparage You? Why Would You Go Anywhere Where They Treat You Bad? Well, That's How It Is For Us To Go To Mexico. You Have To Be On Your Guard, Because I Think The Mexicans Are Harder On The Mexicans, The Mexican-americans. They Don't See Us As Mexican. I Think Part Of It's A Class Issue And A Color Issue. We're More Connected To Their Servants, So What Are We Doing Staying At A Nice Hotel? There's A Kind Of Shame.

Nice

Thinking

Color

The Border Between The Dead And The Living, If You're Mexican, Doesn't Exist. The Dead Are Part Of Your Life.

Mexican

Borders

Ifs

The Ego's Blocking The Light From Coming.

Block

Light

Ego

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

Guadalupe

My Own

Vessel

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 Think Of Reading As Like A Medicine Cabinet.

Reading

Thinking

Medicine

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.

Attitude

Thinking

Way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Father

Optimistic

Thinking

Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

Mines

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

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.

Way

Needs

Guides

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

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

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.

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

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.

Book

Community

Events

[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

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

I Was Silent As A Child, And Silenced As A Young Woman; I Am Taking My Lumps And Bumps For Being A Big Mouth, Now, But Usually From Those Whose Opinion I Don't Respect.

Bullying

Children

Bumps

I Didn't Marry. I Didn't Have Children. I Followed The Food Supply For Jobs. I Kept Writing At Night. And That Kept Me Moving. It Kept My Life Disruptive. It Broke Up Many Relationships. Was It Worth It? Yes.

Jobs

Children

Moving

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

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

Grief

Joy

Filled

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

Fire

People

House

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

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.

Book

Communication

Buddhism

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.

Grief

Sadness

Feelings

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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