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All Quotes by author - Luis Alberto Urrea

" A great Chicano forebear of mine in writing is Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. He was writing good border mysteries for Chicano readers back in the '80s and '90s. "

" A lot of our family was undocumented. My mom and dad were both super conservative. My dad had a green card; my mom was an Eisenhower Republican who did not approve of all the 'illegal people.' "

" Books are like chocolate. Can't eat just one. "

" Borders are liminal spaces. Anyone worthy of the title of 'writer' is a border writer. We all are border people. "

" During grade school, we moved to a white, working-class suburb in San Diego, and there were no Mexicans. "

" I am actually a 'Seven Samurai' fan. "

" I am addicted to poetry, but the truth is I cannot pass up a good hard-boiled mystery. "

" I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached. "

" I came to believe the green fuse that drives spring and summer through the world is essentially a literary energy. That the world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing - and that thing was story. "

" I don't like being angry all the time; it's not good for me. I have to have serenity or else go to war. "

" I don't like to see people get kicked around. You have to stand up for them. "

" I had not seen lawns till fifth grade - big green lawns. "

" I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write. "

" I love books with titles like, 'How Do You Spank a Porcupine?,' 'Arnie, the Darling Starling,' or 'The Bat in My Pocket.' "

" I'm always fascinated by the disjunct between what's really happening on the ground and the propaganda machine that feeds America alarmist news about immigration. "

" I'm always trying to, using literature, subvert people's responses. "

" I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma. "

" I'm interested in the eternal soul. That's what I write about. "

" I missed the Wilco phenom while busy obsessing over rock en Espanol. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at O'Hare getting on a plane with my Chi-town homeboy, Jeff Tweedy. I loved the guy right away and loved his family. How odd to know somebody before you listen to them. I don't know if that's bad or good. "

" In the end, I'm really interested in people and what we do with our short time here on earth. I'm interested in the human soul. "

" I often say poetry was my first love. "

" I read most often in bed as part of my attempted sleep ritual. But I spend a lot of time reading on planes and in hotels, too. "

" I saw 'The War Wagon' with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, but it was dubbed into German. And it had Japanese subtitles and then this little strip with some Spanish words, and I've never forgotten that weird image. It was so magical and funky. "

" It became really important to me if I was going to write 'Hummingbird's Daughter' to try to do honor to women. "

" It's almost easy for me to write about a magnificent tropical village with orchids and dragonflies. That's intoxicating, but the United States is magical, too. We just forget this. "

" It's not like Mexicans have an illegal immigration organ in their body and at 14 kicks off a hormone and shows them how to come to the United States illegally. It's a question of desperation for a vast majority of them. "

" It's the most absurd story. I grew up in the dirt streets of Tijuana, dying of all kinds of diseases - tuberculosis, fevers, all that - and it somehow turned into this charmed life. I don't know exactly how. "

" I used to approach writing like a football game. If I went out there and aggressively saw more, I'd know more, and I'd capture more, and I'd write better. Hut, hut, hut: First down and haiku! "

" I used to work with a relief group that took care of the people in the dump. We took them food and water and medicine and built homes and took them to church services, whatever was needed. "

" I've been told not to tour down in Mexico. I am too well-known now. The kidnappers may think that my publisher will pay a ransom. "

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