In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine, a muddy color.
Sandra CisnerosRead
I was a little press writer when the National Endowment for the Arts came to my rescue and gave me an award. I couldn't buy a light bulb. Almost more than the money, the awards are important because they show that someone believes in you.
Interpretation
Awards signify recognition and belief in one's work, often providing emotional support beyond financial assistance.
In this quote, Sandra Cisneros reflects on the transformative impact of receiving an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. She emphasizes that while financial support is crucial, the deeper significance lies in the validation and encouragement that recognition brings to an artist, reinforcing their sense of purpose and belief in their talent.
In practice
During an acceptance speech at an awards ceremony.
In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine, a muddy color.
But I deal with this by meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.
I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity.
I'm a witch woman--high on tobacco and holy water. I'm a woman delighted with her disasters. They give me something to do. A profession of sorts...I have the magic of words. The power to charm and kill at will.
I have to say that the traditional role is kind of a myth. I think the traditional Mexican woman is a fierce woman.
And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.
Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is neither conscious or unconscious.
Now I found it in writing sentences. You can write that sentence in a way that you would have written it last year. Or you can write it in the way of the exquisite nuance that is sriting in your mind now. But that takes a lot of ... waiting for the right word to come.
Work a great deal at evening effects, lamplight, candlelight, etc. The intriguing thing is not to show the source of the light but the effect of the lighting.
I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
I haven't found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as a sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is, [or] going out and getting into the weirdness of reality and doing a little time on the Proud Highway.
All that we did, all that we said or sang must come from contact with the soil.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.