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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.

Sandra Cisneros

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Sandra Cisneros
Age: 69
Born: 1954
Born: December 20
Arts Administrator
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Short Story Writer
Teacher
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Power
Give
Giving
Writing
Make
Things
Latina
Distinctive
Woman

More quotes by Sandra Cisneros

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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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Packing is important because a lot of times I have to go places where I have to be in four different climates in three weeks. For example, Bosnia, Ireland, Rome. Different parts of Italy. You have to pack and get it down to a science.
Sandra Cisneros
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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?
Sandra Cisneros
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'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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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I do travel a lot, because I need oxygen, I need to go to places to meet people who aren't upset at me because I'm asking for peace.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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I think the erotic is very spiritual, and I never see that spiritual dimension when you look at collections of erotica. That's always missing for me.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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I think one of the great primordial fears we have once we become conscious of our aloneness as children is the fear of losing our mother. We have that from the moment we realize we can lose her just in the supermarket. As a child, it was more terrifying than arithmetic.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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Being on a highway, all that speed and aggression, is very terrifying to me.
Sandra Cisneros
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Books are medicine and you have to take the right medicine that you need at that moment or that day or that time in your life.
Sandra Cisneros
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I was reading all these male writers who were doing wild and wonderful things. It gave me permission to experiment.
Sandra Cisneros
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Now I feel life is really short and I have to take care of things.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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The truth has a strange way of following you, of coming up to you and making you listen to what it has to say.
Sandra Cisneros