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The world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.

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
Burning
Fire
House
Live
Love
World
People

More quotes by Sandra Cisneros

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To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year's Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class.
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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I can't do a linear novel. I'm just going to write what I need to write.
Sandra Cisneros
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Catholicism believes in the Virgen de Guadalupe. The mother of God is worshipped, especially in Latin America. I find her very empowering. I find that the Virgen de Guadalupe allowed me to return to parts of my upbringing I had disregarded.
Sandra Cisneros
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The Mexico - United States border was always porous. People have been going and coming back since before the Spaniards arrived. Now we're seeing communities who have family members on the other side very frightened. I feel saddened for those families divided by violence. The whole border area is under siege.
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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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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My Spanish is a daughter's Spanish. I write, but my Spanish really is very limited.
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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The writer Denise Chávez comments on poor food and what you associate with luxury food items. In fact, she wrote a whole book called A Taco Testimony, and though the title sounds light, it's a heavy book. It's about being working class and what kind of food is available to you that's cheap.
Sandra Cisneros
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I was looking at a lot of experimental writers, and I was very intrigued by short-short fiction, writers who would write little things, what I call buttons now, little vignettes.
Sandra Cisneros
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To me, the Virgen de Guadalupe is just a vessel for me to recognize my own God within myself.
Sandra Cisneros
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The good thing about Dennis [ Mathis] is, even though he's a white, he respected that I was doing something quirky with my English. He loved it when I would mix up the Americanisms and say, That's water over the dam.
Sandra Cisneros
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You know that you wouldn't take a baby on a plane without diapers, so when you leave your house, take care of you, like you would a baby. Don't leave your house without packing some healthy things.
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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Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in
Sandra Cisneros
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I never paid attention when people said, That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction, except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.
Sandra Cisneros
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I had to learn quick, because I was performing in Cinco de Mayo festivals with babies crying and people lifting their beers, and you know the feather dancers would come, and they'd say, What are you, a poet? You're next.
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
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One way to get very humble is to dedicate the work you're going to do to your community. And by community I mean that community you have a special vision for, that only you see, that no one else in a room sees. That special community in pain, that through a pain you've suffered, you're able to have that vision, that super-ray vision.
Sandra Cisneros