Cisneros Quotes

Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid. There should be stars for great wars like ours.

If I am a witch, then so be it, I said. And I took to eating black things - huitlacoche the corn mushroom, coffee, dark chiles, the bruised part of fruit, the darkest, blackest things to make me hard and strong.

Everywhere I go, it's me and me. Half of me living my life, the other half watching me live it.

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.

Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.

Once you awaken, you will have no interest in judging those who sleep.

We're going to right the world and live. I mean live our lives the way lives were meant to be lived. With the throat and wrists. With rage and desire, and joy and grief, and love till it hurts, maybe. But goddamn, girl. Live.

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.

People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth. They don't look down at all except to be content to live on hills.

You're in love with my mind/But sometimes, sweetheart, a woman needs a man who loves her ass.

Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky.

I'm not saying I'm not bad. I'm not saying I'm special. But I'm not like the Allport Street girls, who stand in doorways and go with men into alleys. All I know is I didn't want it like that. Not against the bricks or hunkering in somebody's car. I wanted it come undone like gold thread, like a tent full of birds.

Once you tell a man he's pretty, there's no taking it back. They think they're pretty all the time, and I suppose, in a way, they are. It's got to do with believing it.

She has many troubles, but the big one is her husband who left and keeps leaving.

We do this because the world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver

A House of My Own Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after. Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.

Tell me a story, even if it's a lie.

My sky, my life, my eyes. Let me look at you. Before you open those eyes of yours. The days to come, the days gone by. Before we go back to what we’ll always be.

And the sea trickling out of my eye as if I'd always carried it inside me, like a seashell waiting to be cupped to an ear.

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.

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.

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain…I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

In the Bay, whenever I got depressed, I always drove out to the Ocean Beach. Just to sit. And, I don't know, something about looking at water, how it just goes and goes and goes, something about that I found very soothing. As if somehow I were connected to every ripple that was sending itself out and out until it reached another shore.

One day I'll own my own house, but I won't forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I'll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house. Some days after dinner, guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumbling. Rats? they'll ask. Bums, I'll say, and I'll be happy.

I have inherited her name but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” -The house on Mango Street

Instead, I got mad, and anger when it's used to act, when used nonviolently, has power.

She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.

Butterflies are too few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it.

Seems like the world is spinning smooth without a bump or squeak except when love comes in. Then the whole machine just quits like a loud load of wash on imbalance--the buzzer singing to high heave, the danger light flashing.

After illumination," Socrates continued, "difficulties continue to arise; what changes is your relationship to them. You see more and resist less. You gain the capacity to turn your problems into lessons and your lessons into wisdom."  

Joy and peace are manifestations of the presence of God, and your brother and sister are His perfect expression. You now understand that there is no need to alter perfection.

If you’re not careful you’ll end up believing this is the world

I have decided not to grow up tamed like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain.” -The House on Mango Street

But when I look at this work, I see in that tree, hoarded like rain, all the love a man could feel for a woman in one brief life.

I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much.

I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I'm me. One day I'll jump out of my skin. I'll shake the sky like a hundred violins.

Los ceniceros de mi padre eran los crematorios, donde él incineraba las cosas que prefería callar.

the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be.

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 les

Hay personas que solo pueden expresar sus sentimientos por escrito.

Not a flat. Not an appartement in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own.

Sandra Cisneros,

Alone, all alone in the world, sad and small like a nightingale serenading the infinite. How could a love so tender and sweet become the cross of my pain? No, no, I can't conceive I won't receive your precious lips again. My eyes are tired of weeping, my heart of beating. If perhaps some crystal moment before dawn or twilight you remember me, bring only a bouquet of tears to lay upon my thirsty grave.

Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all those books and paper? Why did she march so far away? They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.

You wouldn’t believe the sun had ever shone on this heart.

Life is like a pencil, it can either be wasted; or, be used to create something beautiful.

I wanted to come undone like gold thread, like a tent full of birds.

I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees.

De alguna manera la muerte de mi padre me arrojó al mundo,

Little thorn in my soul, pebble in my shoe, jewel of my life, the passionate doll who has torn my heart in two, tell me, cruel beauty that I adore, why you torment me. I have the misfortune of being both poor and without your affection. When the hope of your caresses flowered in my soul, happiness blossomed in my tomorrows. But now that you have yanked my golden dreams from me, I shiver from this chalice of pain like a tender white flower tossed in rain. Return my life to me, and end this absurd pain. If not, Rogelio Velasco will have loved in vain.

when you choose to forgive, and you want peace badly enough, you will forgive. But, and this is a big but, if you do not have absolute faith that what you are doing is the right thing and that it will bring you peace, you will not find ultimate peace. Ultimate peace of mind comes when you can forgive someone and have absolute knowledge that it is God's and your highest will to do so.

I teach poetry to teens, and I always include a picture of the poet on the handout. I want my readers to see Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni. I want them to know what Sandra Cisneros, Natalie Diaz, and Patricia Smith look like. Some will see their reflections looking back at them, others won't. Both are important. Who makes the work is just as important as the work made.

I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.

People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth. They don’t look down except to be content to live on hills. One day I’ll own my own house but I will not forget who I am or where I came from.” - The House on Mango Street

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

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.

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain. In the movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all the away. He power is her own. She will not give it away. I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

un padre que monta en cólera cuando su hijo falla o pierde, cuando regresa a casa con notas desaprobatorias o sin la esperada convocatoria al equipo de fútbol, la orquesta sinfónica, el cuadro de brigadieres o lo que fuere, veo en realidad a un niño fracasado metido en el cuerpo de un adulto, un niño angustiado tratando de vengarse de su pasado, de las veces en que no pudo o no supo cómo sobresalir, cómo ganar una carrera, cómo tocar un instrumento, cómo meter un gol, cómo imponerse en determinado concurso, cómo resaltar, cómo ser lo que todos esperaban que fuese.

When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was." - Rumi

La idea era distinta, ahora yo estoy a sus pies.

Hay solamente una cosa que odio de ser hombre. ¿Qué es? Saber las intenciones de otro hombre. Estas destinado a saber cuando jugaran con una mujer y cuando el amor que tiene por ella es real. Cuando estamos celosos es por algo; un hombre sabe lo que se oculta detrás de la mirada de otro al ver a una mujer. Y es verdad, todos los hombres son iguales, todos juegan con las mujeres. Ese que sea incapaz de cometer tal acto no es un hombre, es un caballero.

Eramos, somos y seremos una simple fantasía; eso que pudo haber pasado pero que decidimos dejar a nuestra propia imaginación, un pensamiento atrapado en nuestra mente. Tal vez fue la mejor decisión; así cada quien escribe su propio final feliz.

Reímos como niños, amamos como jóvenes y pecamos como adultos.

As your trust in God lifts and unites you with Him, your faith in His plan and in His will, will bring you absolute peace. I have said many times before that God’s will and your highest will are one and the same. Trust this, and you will find peace. If you fail to trust this, you can do all the right things for the right reasons and stand in the most beautiful of places on this planet and you will not find peace.

As Plato once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

What air is there left to breathe

the song of the dead heavy as rain on the wide banana leaves hard as drums

I feel your blood raging in my veins

I’ve aged in battles & my idols are dead. Now, scare off the the devil

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain. In the movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all the away. He power is her own. She will not give it away. I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain. In the movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away. I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain. In the movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all the away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away. I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

Pero tal parece que quienes acortan su camino a cambio encuentran peores peligros.

The POUM leaders were handed over to NKVD operatives and taken to a secret prison in Madrid, a church in the Calle Atocha. Nin was separated from his comrades and driven to Alcalá de Henares, where he was interrogated from 18 to 21 June. Despite the tortures he was subjected to by Orlov and his men, Nin refused to confess to the falsified accusations of passing artillery targets to the enemy. He was then moved to a summer house outside the city which belonged to Constancia de la Mora, the wife of Hidalgo de Cisneros and tortured to death. A grotesque example of Stalinist play-acting then took place. A group of German volunteers from the International Brigades in uniforms without insignia, pretending to be members of the Gestapo, charged into the house to make it look as if they had come to Nin’s rescue. ‘Evidence’ of their presence was then planted, including German documents, Falangist badges and nationalist banknotes. Nin, after being killed by Orlov’s men, was buried in the vicinity. When graffiti appeared on walls demanding ‘Where is Nin?’ communists would scribble underneath ‘In Salamanca or in Berlin’. The official Party line, published in Mundo Obrero, claimed that Nin had been liberated by Falangists and was in Burgos.

To use an example from school, consider the writers we are all expected to read; the list usually includes Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, Jane Austen, and William Shakespeare. These writers are seen as representing the universal human experience, and we read them precisely because they are presumed to be able to speak to us all. Now consider the writers we turn to during events promoting diversity—events such as Multicultural Authors Week and Black History Month. These writers usually include Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Sandra Cisneros. We go to these writers for the black or Asian perspective; Toni Morrison is always seen as a black writer, not just a writer.

«Todas las familias tienen secretos, pero no todas saben que los tienen. El problema no es tener secretos, sino conocerlos. ¿Qué haces con esa información una vez que accedes a ella? No son anécdotas, quiero decir»

la transmutación definitiva, la que nos cambia para siempre, modifica nuestras almas y, a veces, son solo los pequeños detalles los que sirven como evidencia de esa nueva vida,

Now consider the writers we turn to during events promoting diversity—events such as Multicultural Authors Week and Black History Month. These writers usually include Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Sandra Cisneros. We go to these writers for the black or Asian perspective; Toni Morrison is always seen as a black writer, not just a writer. But when we are not looking for the black or Asian perspective, we return to white writers, reinforcing the idea of whites as just human, and people of color as particular kinds (racialized) of humans. This also allows white (male) writers to be seen as not having an agenda or any particular perspective, while racialized (and gendered) writers do.

que mi libertad no consistía en salir, sino en saber.

como dice Nabokov— que «todo era como debía ser, que nada cambiaría nunca, que nadie moriría jamás».

Uno no tiene por qué llorar sus miserias delante de los demás, decía.

Si la muerte de un hijo entumece al padre, la muerte del padre despierta al hijo. Cuando mi padre murió, desperté, me sentí grande, mayor. A la fuerza.

Hay preguntas que provoca la muerte que no pueden contestarse desde la vida.

«Nacer, vivir, morir, no es lo peor. Lo trágico es pasar sin sonreír. Todo se hace belleza en el amor. Nacer, vivir, morir».

«Tu capacidad de imponerte a la vida»

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

Americanah; Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish; Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Teju Cole, Open City; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nell Freudenberger, The Newlyweds; Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban and King of Cuba; Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker.

I came to admire at all angles a sculpture that speaks of the sacred, not of the mundane. Of that moment when two beings kiss and are infinite.

They tried to bury us . . . but they didn’t know we were seeds?

Me gusta estar solo porque no estoy solo. Me sobra compañía.

«Nacer, vivir, morir, no es lo peor. Lo trágico es pasar sin sonreír.

La equivocación es el centro de la paternidad, diría que es el centro de cualquier asunto inherente al ser humano. Errar no es una característica más del hombre, es su característica más importante: (...) nuestros errores superan el número a nuestros aciertos, por más que algunos charlatanes se empeñan en divulgar lo contrario.

Por más que uno crea saber cómo tratar a los niños cuando llegan, el camino hacia el debut paternal va a revelándole al hombre el tamaño de su ignorancia.

La revelación de la paternidad: comprendes, de golpe, no quién eres sino quién has dejado de ser.

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.

Lo que quiero recordar es una calle. No sé ni para qué.

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I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. —Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street