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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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."  

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Hay personas que solo pueden expresar sus sentimientos por escrito.

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

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.

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.

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

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,

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.

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

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.

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

Siéntete libre, desapegado, sin tener que rendir cuentas a nadie, alimentado de sueños y volando a través de ellos, en un momento mágico que es estar vivo. Al menos siéntete así una vez en la vida. Pasaje de: Sergio Cisneros Galea. “Relatos de un mundo por conocer”. iBooks.

Hogar. Hogar. Hogar es una casa en una fotografía.

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.

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.

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'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.

Pídele a casi cualquier chicana o chicano fuera de la academia que nombre a una mujer famosa de origen mexicano y probablemente vas a escuchar "Dolores Huerta". Si la persona conoce a nuestras escritoras contemporáneas, quizá mencione a "Sandra Cisneros" o "Ana Castillo". Si preguntas por un nombre de los primeros tiempos, te podrán decir Sor Juana, la monja rebelde de los mil seiscientos. Cuando trates de profundizar, la persona a tu lado tal vez va a decir, "iMe doy por vencido!, pero, bueno... ahí está la Virgen de Guadalupe, que creo, está en muchísimas camisetas. Era inevitable entonces, que la necesidad de un libro como este sea finalmente reconocida. Ask almost anyone outside of academia to name famous US women of Mexican origin and you will probably hear ‘Dolores Huerta.’ If the person knows our contemporary writers, maybe ‘Sandra Cisneros’ and ‘Ana Castillo.’ If you ask for a name from earlier times, you might get ‘Sor Juana’-the rebel nun of the 1600’s. When you try to dig deeper, your companion may whimper, ‘I give up! Well…there’s the Virgin of Guadalupe, she’s on a lot of T-shirts. It was inevitable, then, that the need for a book like this would be recognized.

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

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.

...I had the feeling that Gregorio was everywhere and nowhere, that he was a vaporous presence, as if he hadn't died altogether and was perhaps not outside of me, but inside of me, not in any tangible sense but not in a merely spiritual one either. We like to think that ghosts inhabit old houses and dark corners, but we too in our body and soul become these very things: an old house, a dark corner, a storehouse for the memories of the people who preceded us and whose rest we eventually decided to disturb.

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 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.

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.

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The government makes use of the clergy as of one arm more, which, however, is now almost powerless through corruption. The Oriental church has no conception of the noble devotion which has honored Catholicism in the lives of Saint Thomas of Canterbury and Cardinal Cisneros. The

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

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.

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

I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. I write it down and Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free.

El destierro, en cambio, incluso si es voluntario, te vuelve osado, arriesgado, resistente

Sandra Cisneros, Richard Vasquez, people like that. I asked Nick if he’d ever read Octavio Prado.” “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.” “He wrote this book, Lake of the Moon, about growing up in Fresno.

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

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

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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.

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

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

We went to the cemetery that day, resolved to confirm once and for all the truth of the story that great-great-grandmother Nicolasa was buried alongside Gregorio the priest.