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" I am addicted to poetry, but the truth is I cannot pass up a good hard-boiled mystery. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Truth Is
Good
I Am
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Back
Mine
Great
" When 'The Hummingbird's Daughter' came out, there was a certain backlash - 'Well, this isn't 'The Devil's Highway.'' That's just the way it goes. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Well
Out
Daughter
" I am actually a 'Seven Samurai' fan. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Fan
Actually
I Am
" It became really important to me if I was going to write 'Hummingbird's Daughter' to try to do honor to women. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Me
Women
Important
" I often say poetry was my first love. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
First
Poetry
Love
" To me, writing is prayer. I pray all the time. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Pray
Me
Prayer
" I'm always trying to, using literature, subvert people's responses. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Trying
People
Always
" Many of us writers tour like a literary Bachman Turner Overdrive. We ain't pretty, but we're on the road. Many of us wish we were rock stars anyway. For my part, I live in my iPod. The musicians there are my constant companions on the road. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Stars
Rock
Live
" I was torn between the Americanness my mom wanted for me and the Mexicanness my father wanted - they were wrestling for cultural influence over me. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Me
Wrestling
Father
" I was deeply infected with storytelling from the get go, and I truly love it. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Get
Love
Storytelling
" 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. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Question
Immigration
Body
" When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Left
Little
Four
" When I was doing missionary work when I was younger, which started this obsession of mine with the literature of witness, I was a translator for a missionary group, and I spent years in a Tijuana dump. People were really thrown by the fact that the Mexican poor, many of them pureblood indigenous people, seemed happy. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Happy
Indigenous People
Work
" The French-Cajun culture is similar to mine - they're Catholic, they play accordions, and they eat hot chiles. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Hot
Play
Mine
" 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. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Soul
End
Earth
" I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Theme
Writer
Grace
" 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. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Water
Food
Church
" Writers write without support. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Writers
Support
Without
" There is beauty in our roots. Sometimes we think our roots are shameful, and people tell you that you're no good or your ancestors are no good or that you come from a neighborhood of no hope and terrible crime. But it's about the beauty of those places, and I carry that with me. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Roots
Beauty
Good
" My dad looked like Errol Flynn, and I think my mom thought she was moving into a hacienda, but they lived on a dirt street in Tijuana, a house jammed with relatives, nobody speaking English. She didn't know a word of Spanish. She grew up well and was appalled and humiliated, terrified of anyone ethnic. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Know
Think
She
" I had not seen lawns till fifth grade - big green lawns. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Till
Seen
Big
" We're all funny. Humor unites us. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Unites
Humor
Funny
" The tone of 'Into the Beautiful North' is really the way I write. 'Hummingbird's Daughter' was the anomaly. It was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Daughter
Way
Write
" Masculinity is kind of a toxic curse, isn't it? The expectations of it were hard on me. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Expectations
Me
Kind
" Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Speak
Day
Home
" 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. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Motivation
Identity
Family
" We want to ascribe a kind of tragic grimness to people, but people are funny. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Want
Tragic
People
" I'm interested in the eternal soul. That's what I write about. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Soul
Interested
About
" The concept of a literature of witness - of bearing witness - has embedded in it the need for action. One must not simply hide in the shadows and type; one must also stand in the light. "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Hide
Stand
Light
" 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! "
Luis Alberto Urrea
Writing
Better
Football