Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Related Quotes:

" We're all funny. Humor unites us. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" With a name like Luis Alberto Urrea, it's political no matter what I do. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

Name

Political

" Way back when I was working at the dump, I saw that, even when living among the trash, that some people would decide to choose joy in their lives. "

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

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

" 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 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. "

" To me, writing is prayer. I pray all the time. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

Pray

Prayer

" When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis. "

" I've been treated beautifully wherever I've gone, and I really think we all want to love each other. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

Wrestling

Father

" I was deeply infected with storytelling from the get go, and I truly love it. "

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

" 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. "

" People think of me as a political writer, but I don't think of myself that way. "

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

" 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. "

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

Just

Eat

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

" 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. "

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

Titles

Books

" 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 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. "

" 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! "

" Writing went from being a calling to being a job. Business ruined things. It became like making sausages in a sausage factory. "