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You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.

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
Erase
Forget

More quotes by Sandra Cisneros

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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.
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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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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I think that it's not enough to do the little Band-Aid things of having celebrities come and read to children. Not that we don't need to read to children, but we don't need to just do it one time and feel good about it. I think we need to think long range about poor people and their relationship to libraries.
Sandra Cisneros
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One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent.
Sandra Cisneros
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I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin.
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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I usually say Latina, Mexican-American or American Mexican, and in certain contexts, Chicana, depending on whether my audience understands the term or not.
Sandra Cisneros
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Each book gets harder, each book gets harder and harder. I always feel like crying when I have to write.
Sandra Cisneros
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I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.
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 border between the dead and the living, if you're Mexican, doesn't exist. The dead are part of your life.
Sandra Cisneros
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I know the books that I need to help me to be wiser than my years and be kinder and more compassionate and more patient than I really am.
Sandra Cisneros
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How can art make a difference in the world?
Sandra Cisneros
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People know when you're speaking from el corazón. You have that pain. Take that pain and do something with it. That's very powerful.
Sandra Cisneros
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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?
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros
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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.
Sandra Cisneros