I learned from the Macarturos. I had never been at a table with a labor organizer and a playwright and a performance artist and an anthropologist and a human rights lawyer. Usually at most gatherings, it's all writers. But suddenly I was at a table with all these different people and I learned from each of them, learned from the work they're doing, learned new ways to solve my problems.

Sandra Cisneros

It takes a long time for women to feel it's alright to be chingona. To aspire to be a chingona!...You are saying, 'This is my camino, this is my path and I'm gonna follow it, regardless of what culture says.' I don't think the church likes chingonas. I don't think the state likes chingonas.! And fathers definitely do not like chingonas. And boyfriends don't like chingonas. But, you know, I remain optimistic. I will meet a man who likes a chingona, one day. One day, my chingon will come.

Sandra Cisneros

optimistic father thinking

I've put up with too much, too long, and now I'm just too intelligent, too powerful, too beautiful, too sure of who I am finally to deserve anything less.

Sandra Cisneros

intelligent powerful beautiful

We need to write because so many of our stories are not being heard. Where could they be heard in this era of fear and media monopolies? Writing allows us to transform what has happened to us and to fight back against what's hurting us. While not everyone is an author, everyone is a writer and I think that the process of writing is deeply spiritual and liberatory.

Sandra Cisneros

hurt spiritual writing

I am obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in her skin.

Sandra Cisneros

becoming-a-woman obsessed skins

You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.

Sandra Cisneros

erase knows forget

If you know two cultures and two languages, that intermediate place, where the two don't perfectly meet, is really interesting.

Sandra Cisneros

two culture interesting

My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.

Sandra Cisneros

knives flower thinking

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

pain powerful people

The beauty of literature is you allow readers to see things through other peoples eyes. All good books do this.

Sandra Cisneros

eye literature book

There are two things you need to ask for, to open up that channel, so you get the light. One is humility, because our ego is always going to block that guidance, and so you ask for humility.And the second thing you're going to ask for is courage, because what you're going to be asked to do is bigger than what you think you can do.

Sandra Cisneros

block humility thinking

I'm a witch woman--high on tobacco and holy water. I'm a woman delighted with her disasters. They give me something to do. A profession of sorts...I have the magic of words. The power to charm and kill at will.

Sandra Cisneros

magic giving water

'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.

Sandra Cisneros

challenging-the-status-quo white want

Once you can open yourself to joy, you feel as if you've transformed your sadness into illumination, which is really all that art is. All we want to do is transform the negative emotions into light. We want to compost them into light.

Sandra Cisneros

sadness light art

The most powerful speaking you can do is the speaking that comes from your heart and your love.

Sandra Cisneros

most-powerful powerful heart

I have to say that the traditional role is kind of a myth. I think the traditional Mexican woman is a fierce woman.

Sandra Cisneros

mexican roles thinking

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

Sandra Cisneros

fire house people

The border between the dead and the living, if you're Mexican, doesn't exist. The dead are part of your life.

Sandra Cisneros

mexican borders ifs

You were given that pain and that vision because you have something to do with it.

Sandra Cisneros

given vision pain

You don't want somebody who doesn't know his own heart, do you? You'll find someone who's brave enough to love you. Someday. One day. Not today.

Sandra Cisneros

brave love-you heart

When you're in that state of grief, any little breeze, any hello, any confrontation, any grazing of someone meeting your eyes, might cause you suddenly to burst into grief. You could be looking at a jar of peanut butter in the supermarket, and then start crying.

Sandra Cisneros

grief eye littles