Sandra Cisneros: You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad.

 “I think of reading as like a medicine cabinet.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “People know when you’re speaking from el corazón. You have that pain.”

– Sandra Cisneros

“I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to mother books.”

– Sandra Cisneros, IOWA Public Radio

“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.”

– Sandra Cisneros

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

– 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.”

– Sandra Cisneros

“One press account said I was an overnight success. I thought that was the longest night I’ve ever spent.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “I felt as if I was a spy in the house of my family and in the university. I did not speak because I had such low self-esteem about what I had to say. I was often silent. I was a witness. Listening is very good training for being a writer. ‘The House on Mango Street’ allowed me to find my voice.”

– Sandra Cisneros, IOWA PUBLIC RADIO

“I feel comfortable in Spanish, I chat like a parrot, but I don’t have the confidence in Spanish that I do in English.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “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.”

– Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

 “The beauty of literature is you allow readers to see things through other people’s eyes.”

– Sandra CIsneros

 “Revenge only engenders violence, not clarity and true peace. I think liberation must come from within.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “I do want to inherit the witch in my women ancestors-the willfullness, the passion, ay, the passion where all good art comes from as women, the perseverance, the survivor skills, the courage, the strength of las mujeres bravas, peleoneras, necias, berrinchudas. I want to be una brava, peleonera, necia, berrinchuda. I want to be bad if bad means I must go against society- el Papá, el Papá, the boyfriend, lover, husband, girlfriends, comadres-and listen to my own heart, that incredible witch’s broom that will take me where I need to go.”

– Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

 “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

 “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.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “I’m not afraid to say what I’m afraid of. Does that make me fearless?”

– Sandra Cisnero

“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

 “How come nobody told me an aria, a piece of stained glass, a painting, a sunset can be God too?”

– Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

“When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.”

– Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

 “I think we are all gifted as children, but we aren’t gifted with the same gifts.”

– Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

 “I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive.”

– Sandra Cisneros

 “I have to understand what my strengths and limitations are and work from a true place.”

– Sandra Cisneros