Sandra Cisneros

“In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.”

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

“The more you speak of yourself, the more you are you.”

“I've put it all in a book, all my stories, so that one day when I am gone, you can look on a shelf and there I'll be.”

“I am a story. And I am the storyteller.”

“When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Mango Street.”

“Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down. You want to know what is good? Pride. That's a good thing.”

“I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.”

“I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair.”

“I write because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me.”

“One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever.”

“We do this because the world we live in is a house on fire and the people we love are burning.”

“A house of my own. Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own.”

“I want to be like the waves on the sea, live in the moment, and know that I am part of something bigger.”