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I realize that when I moved out of my father’s house I shocked and frightened him because I needed a room of my own, a space of my own to reinvent myself.

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
Space
Shocked
Father
Frightened
House
Moved
Realize
Room
Rooms
Needed
Realizing
Reinvent

More quotes by Sandra Cisneros

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One of the things Thich Nhat Hanh taught me: he says, When you're in a hurry, go slower. That works every time, unless you're trying to catch a plane.
Sandra Cisneros
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The ideal for me is to mix it up. When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre.
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I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.
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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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My readers are as diverse as any group you will ever see. Something that booksellers always tell me. That they are always surprised at the kind of people that come to my readings. That they are such a mix of ages and colors. It looks like people spilling out of an elevator.
Sandra Cisneros
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It's so good for your health to take those naps. I don't know why people brag that they sleep five hours. I'd be ashamed. I'm proud that I sleep nine hours.
Sandra Cisneros
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If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars.
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 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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People like to blame Mexican food, but look at what's happening globally, look at all the fast foods and products filled with trans fat. Before the Mexican Revolution, a hundred years ago, people were eating what now macrobiotics tells us to eat, corn, black beans, rice. That's what people were eating - and chile peppers. That's a healthy diet.
Sandra Cisneros
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I was silent as a child, and silenced as a young woman I am taking my lumps and bumps for being a big mouth, now, but usually from those whose opinion I don't respect.
Sandra Cisneros
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When we started publishing, you had to be better than good. You had to be excellent. But as long as people are reading, I don't care what they're reading.
Sandra Cisneros
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Writing poetry helps me to write my fiction each thing helps the other.
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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A second person that's come to my life very recently, and I'm thankful for it, is Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the Nonviolent Communication Organization. He has all these books about how we can use our language nonviolently to help create peace. He's using a lot of Buddhism too, but he's helping me to think about language.
Sandra Cisneros
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I look at Thich Nhat Hanh and I look at Marshall Rosenberg, and they're more concerned about the long range. And that long range means that you have to sit down with people who don't think like you. I want to reach people who don't think like me.
Sandra Cisneros
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Believe me, that nap is better than sitting there for three hours and nothing's coming. I've learned that even if I've slept nine hours and I just finished breakfast, if I feel sleepy when I'm in front of that computer, I'll take a nap. And it really does help.
Sandra Cisneros
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I think no matter what you do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, Did I do what I set out to do?
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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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