Elena Poniatowska Quotes & Sayings

I live to the rhythm of my country and I cannot remain on the sidelines. I want to be here. I want to be part of it. I want to be a witness. I want to walk arm in arm with it. I want to hear it more and more, to cradle it, to carry it like a medal on my chest. Activism is a constant element in my life, even though afterwards I anguish over not having written 'my own things.' Testimonial literature provides evidence of events that people would like to hide, denounces and therefore is political and part of a country in which everything remains to be done and documented. — Elena Poniatowska

Lilus shivers between two humid sheets. She doesn't know why she's sick. The illness surged without warning, traitorous, like a great wave of solitude. Health is an easily lost object:"But I had it in my hand, only a little while ago I saw it." That is how her illness was:"But only yesterday I was running on the stairway."
Lilus's illness wasn't a cold, nor the flu, nor a stomach ache. She tended to fall ill over something said to her. Upon hearing something unexpected, she became afraid. She wouldn't turn to anyone, nor did she want to be babied. Secretly she embraced her illness. She'd let herself be invaded by the feeling, and it would seem that the whole world penetrated her being. — Elena Poniatowska

I write in order to belong. — Elena Poniatowska

Writers in Latin America live in a reality that is extraordinarily demanding. Surprisingly, our answer to these demands protects and develops our individuality. I feel I am not alone in trying to give their voice to those who don't have it. — Elena Poniatowska

It torments you to know you were misunderstood, to not have risked yourself, and to wait. — Elena Poniatowska

But just as you become impregnated with someone, even after that someone is gone, that is how Lilus remained — Elena Poniatowska

I believe that everything is political, and as such it should concern all of us. Authors who claim they don't deal with politics in their work are being naive, because even that is a political stance. — Elena Poniatowska

But she won't let him finish his scolding; she'll throw her arms of water around his neck; she will show him her necklaces of small, blue shells, so tender they resemble children's eyelids as they sleep, and of hard shells that look like the teeth of killer fish. Or she'll tell him that god has made nature not only to look upon but also so that we may live in her, and that each person has his own wave, and won't he please choose his. — Elena Poniatowska

She can't even think anymore, she prefers to sing. — Elena Poniatowska