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

Luis Alberto Urrea

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

" The situation was kind of complicated in that my mother didn't speak Spanish. My father spoke English, you know, as best he could. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

" I often say poetry was my first love. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" Poetry is how I feed the soul, and it's how I fire the furnace of writing. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

" 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

" The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

" 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

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

" 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.' "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" The French-Cajun culture is similar to mine - they're Catholic, they play accordions, and they eat hot chiles. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

" Writers write without support. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" 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