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" 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

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" 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

Women

Important

" 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 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 often say poetry was my first love. "

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

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

See

People

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

Name

Political

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

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

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

" 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

" Masculinity is kind of a toxic curse, isn't it? The expectations of it were hard on me. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

Expectations

Kind

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Luis Alberto Urrea

Two

Divide

" 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. "