Quotes by Sandra Cisneros

“It’s memorable because it makes you either laugh or cry. If a story’s really good, it does both. Sometimes it’s not the story’s fault if it doesn’t stay with you, because you’re too old or too youn...”

“I think my work still has a distinctive voice that is uniquely mine—and that voice is one of a person speaking Spanish in English. By that I mean that I write with the syntax and sensibility of Spa...”

“If I had to speak about anything that was difficult in my life now looking back at it, I would say the most difficult part was how the world made you feel about being poor, about being a girl. And,...”

“The only reason we write—well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn’t generalize—is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got ...”

“I don’t take it personally. It has nothing to do with me, or with my book. The book is being taught because it is telling a story that has spiritual resonance at this time in history. It is serving...”

“I like living in a town not dominated by cars. I like living in a small community where artists from around the world come and go. I like living in a town with big sky and big clouds, and where you...”

“Of course I like to write about love, but then I’ll ask, how is Mexican love different from American love? I’ll look at the Mexican models of love, and that leads me to the true Mexican love. True ...”

“In Chicana writing the love between a grandmother and a granddaughter is holier than the relationship between a mother and a daughter because the mother and daughter have to deal with the reality o...”

“Language is much better than throwing stones; language is much, much stronger.”

“Working-class women's literature, women of color, specifically Latina women's writing like my friend Ana Castillo's, or my friend Cherrie Moraga's, Helena Viramontes's, Elena Poniatowska's, and Mar...”

“Books are medicine. What heals me may not be the right prescription for anyone else.”

“Even if a language disappears, I believe a worldview, a syntax, a cadence survives from which the conquering language builds upon, like the stones the Spanish conquistadores gathered from the Indig...”

“I’m on a mission to make up for the huge gaps in my miseducation as a woman of color...At this point in my life, I want to read the classics from the Americas, from Mexico, from women, from the wor...”

“It’s important that young people find the right books that speak to them at the right time, otherwise you might be encouraging them to dislike reading.”

“For me the great shame and dolor of our times is the story of immigrant children.”

“I would never want to offend any writer by publicly admitting which books I’ve put down; it’s not the writer’s fault we didn’t click. Maybe the book arrived too early or too late in my life. If I s...”

“A sensitive, compassionate witness, Cisneros re-creates the neighborhood in which she grew up, evoking the smells and tastes and feelings. The effects of sexism, poverty, racism, and the loss of cu...”

“Sandra Cisneros is one of the most brilliant of today's young writers. Her work is sensitive, alert, nuanceful. It is rich with music and picture.”

“At all times, Sandra Cisneros has penned poetry of utterly divine language and imagery.”

“Sandra Cisneros…has done so much to help other writers…There had been some earlier Chicano works, like Pocho, a novel that came out in 1959. But none of these earlier works really made an impact th...”