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I also learned to tell a story. I think I learned from poetry how to time a story. Poetry's timing, beats and pauses. That white space on the page is as important as the black. The bottom of the page is blackout. It's performance.

Sandra Cisneros

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Sandra Cisneros
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: December 20
Arts Administrator
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Short Story Writer
Teacher
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Stories
Bottom
Blackouts
Also
Poetry
Pauses
Important
Learned
Timing
Time
Space
Page
Think
Story
Performance
Thinking
White
Performances
Black
Beats
Tell
Pages
Blackout

More quotes by 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.
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I want to thank you, especially those people who are agnostic or atheist. I don't mean any offense by the things I said of the spirit world. Thank you for allowing me to speak about the spiritual, because I can't talk about my life or writing without mentioning that.
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I began writing as an experimental writer.
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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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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 was raised in Chicago, so always used Latina. It's what my Father and brothers called ourselves, when we meant the entire Spanish-speaking community of Chicago.
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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You don't have to be the specialist on everything. You can try to inform yourself.
Sandra Cisneros
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I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog.
Sandra Cisneros
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The ego's blocking the light from coming.
Sandra Cisneros
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There's no perfect place, there's no wonderful utopia.
Sandra Cisneros
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I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet.
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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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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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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If you know two cultures and two languages, that intermediate place, where the two don't perfectly meet, is really interesting.
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 am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin.
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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Afterwards, people come and say, I felt like you said that just to me. What you said is something I'm going through right now, so you know that spiritual connection is going on.
Sandra Cisneros