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I feel comfortable in Spanish, I chat like a parrot, but I don't have the confidence in Spanish that I do in English.

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
Spanish
English
Confidence
Comfortable
Feel
Feels
Parrot
Like
Parrots
Chat

More quotes by Sandra Cisneros

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Don't be afraid to say what you don't know, and speak for what you do know. Say, I can't speak for all Latinas, but I can speak for me and tell you very, very honestly.
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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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.
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'm not afraid to say what I'm afraid of. Does that make me fearless?
Sandra Cisneros
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One way to get very humble is to dedicate the work you're going to do to your community.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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Many books that you read, they have those disclaimers that say that, None of the events and none of the people are based on real life and so on... Well, I don't believe that. I think that as human beings many people touch us, especially people we love the most and we can't help but do character sketches when we go to our art.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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You meditate and then you can put on your pajamas, or you can imagine you're wearing your pajamas, and you talk about your piece of writing in the language you would use if you were wearing your pajamas and you were seated at a table with your very good friend. And you wouldn't have to get all dressed up or clean up the table.
Sandra Cisneros
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You're next, after the feather dancers. And you had to get their attention, because otherwise people would go, Oh, a poet. You really have to learn.
Sandra Cisneros
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I don't like to go into subways, because I always see them [ mice]. They are like my naguales [kindred animal spirits]. They follow me. I have literally stepped off of a plane in Phoenix and gotten my bag and stepped out on the curb and they'll be a big desert rat walking right in front of me.
Sandra Cisneros
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You know, you want to be outrageous when you're young, so all the young people say, Oooh . . . Now my tactics are different.
Sandra Cisneros
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The thoughts of letting go of everything I love overwhelms like a tsunami of sorrow.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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Post 9/11, we've seen such disastrous policies on the border. I live two and a half hours away from the border, and I've seen changes for the communities there. I feel like it's an occupied zone. We're losing our rights, and both sides of the border are terrified. The Mexican population and the U.S. population are united in fear.
Sandra Cisneros
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Perhaps the greatest challenge has been trying to keep my time to myself and my private life private in order to do my job. Everything that is most mine belongs to everyone now.
Sandra Cisneros
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You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.
Sandra Cisneros