Sandra Cisneros quotes

One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I've ever spent. (Sandra Cisneros)
Generally if you're a daughter in a Mexican family, no one wants to tell you anything; they tell you the healthy lies about your family. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I was a terrible student. Still, I managed to get into college, but my daydreaming threatened to sabotage me. I used behavior modification to break the cycle. I started by setting an arbitrary time limit on studying: for every 15 minutes of study, I'd allow myself an hour of daydreaming. I set the alarm. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
'Hispanic' is English for a person of Latino origin who wants to be accepted by the white status quo. 'Latino' is the word we have always used for ourselves. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
My feminism is humanism, with the weakest being those who I represent, and that includes many beings and life forms, including some men. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
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. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I think my family and closest friends are learning about my need to withdraw, and I am learning how to restore and store my energy to both serve the community to the best of my ability and to serve my writer's heart. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
Mexico is only a memory of childhood safety. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
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)
What's always a challenge for me is that my Spanish is not the level of my English. Nor do I read in Spanish the way I read in English. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
All of my work is influenced by fairy tales, and I hope my work shows Hans Christian Anderson's influence. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I wanted to write something in a voice that was unique to who I was. And I wanted something that was accessible to the person who works at Dunkin Donuts or who drives a bus, someone who comes home with their feet hurting like my father, someone who's busy and has too many children, like my mother. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
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. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I have to understand what my strengths and limitations are, and work from a true place. I try to do this as best I can while still protecting my writer self, which more than ever needs privacy. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
There are many Latino writers as talented as I am, but because we are published through small presses, our books don't count. We are still the illegal aliens of the literary world. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn't it? View quote
Sandra Cisneros
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. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
But I deal with this by meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world. (Sandra Cisneros)
I don't see any kind of mirror of power, male power, that is, as a form of liberation. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe this is truly freedom. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
I think people should read fairy tales, because were hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
When you have your heart broken wide, you are also open to things of beauty as well as things of sadness. Once people are not here physically, the spiritual remains, we still connect, we can communicate, we can give and receive love and forgiveness. There is love after someone dies. View quote
Sandra Cisneros
Writing poetry helps me to write my fiction; each thing helps the other. View quote
Sandra Cisneros