Luis Alberto Urrea Quotes & Sayings

Even if, at the moment, you can't sit down and do the gruntwork of stringing verbs and nouns together, you are writing. It is a way of seeing, a way of being. The world is not only the world, but your personal filing cabinet. You lodge details of the world in your sparkling nerve-library that spirals through your brain and coils down your arms and legs, collects in your belly and your sex. You write, even if you can't always "write."
However, writers write. Active, not passive. — Luis Alberto Urrea

The world looked to them like a great roll of butcher paper unfurled on a table. — Luis Alberto Urrea

I can't believe how many students don't read. They want to be writers, but they haven't read anything at all. They have looked at book covers, which usually allows them enough expertise to sneer, but they haven't read the books. How many young poets "don't like" poetry? How many fiction writers don't know Lehane from Nevada Barr? — Luis Alberto Urrea

If it was the Border Patrol's job to apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and the dying. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Rita Vargas caught her breath - the dark was spilling out of the mountains as the sun vanished in the west. The deep purple/blue shadows spread out on the water of the Caribe. The ocean was shadowy, yet at the same time, glowing. The massif green on one side, and velvety black on the other. And below, the lights of the cities scattered and burned, white, yellow, white, looking like gems. Stars.
She still recalls it as one of the most beautiful sights she'd ever witnessed, as if the coast of Veracruz were somehow welcoming its sons home. It would have astounded the dead if the could have looked out the windows. Why would they ever have left such a beautiful home for the dry bones and spikes of the desert? If they could have seen what she saw, they might have stayed home. — Luis Alberto Urrea

He couldn't believe she was real. She was like some dream, some story old men told youngsters. She made a fool out of him with the slightest grin or pout. She slept in his bed, not beside him, but around him, her aromatic legs and arms wrapped around him, her mouth against his throat, her beautiful thundercloud hair over his face, his chest. He kissed her hair. Took it to his fist and kissed it, breathed it ... Oh my God, he thought. He didn't know what it was about her that made him more insane: her belly, or the pale friction of her thighs; the small of her back, or her armpits. — Luis Alberto Urrea

On that long westward morning, all Mexicans still dreamed the same dream. They dreamed of being Mexican. There was no greater mystery. — Luis Alberto Urrea

If only Mexico paid their workers a decent wage. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Our power comes from the earth — Luis Alberto Urrea

Laughter is a virus that infects you with humanity. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Bees are excellent engineers, better than even you. They are are hard workers...They are as brave as Indian warriors. And they make honey. Far better than humans, my friend. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Gringos! They have copied us again — Luis Alberto Urrea

Life shifting, as life does — Luis Alberto Urrea

If you were born to be a nail, you had to be hammered. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Everybody knew that being dead could put you in a terrible mood. — Luis Alberto Urrea

This is how Heaven works. They're practical. We are always looking for rays of light. For lightning bolts or burning bushes. But God is a worker, like us. He made the world - He didn't hire poor Indios to build it for him! God has worker's hands. Just remember - angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers. — Luis Alberto Urrea

From the beginning, the highway has always lacked grace-those who worship desert gods know them to favor retribution over the tender dove of forgiveness. In Desolation, doves are at the bottom of the food chain. Tohono O'Odham poet Ofelia Zepeda has pointed out that rosaries and Hail Marys don't work out here. "You need a new kind of prayers," she says "to negotiate with this land. — Luis Alberto Urrea

It seems jolly on the page. But imagine poverty, violence, natural disasters, or political fear driving you away from everything you know. Imagine how bad things get to make you leave behind your family, your friends, your lovers; your home, as humble as it might be; your church, say. Let's take it further - you've said good-bye to the graveyard, the dog, the goat, the mountains where you hunted, your grade school, your state, your favorite spot on the river where you fished and took time to think. — Luis Alberto Urrea

There was nothing one could do when love came. It was fast, and it was strong, and if it were not good, then surely God would not have allowed it such power. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Is it a crime to want to be good? she cried — Luis Alberto Urrea

Who was to say that God did not use the coyote's teeth to eat His gifts? — Luis Alberto Urrea

Owls visited them at night. Some thought the owls were witches. Some thought they were angels of death. Some thought they were holy and brought blessings. Some thought they were the restless spirits of the dead. The cowboys thought they were owls. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Words are the only bread we can really share. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Listen carnales listen to the hymn of it, the lie of it, the prayer of it, the voices singing our names: listen it's our story, it's our song, — Luis Alberto Urrea

Fat green frogs, the eternally grinning type destined to be shellacked into bizarre poses while wearing mariachi hats and holding toy trumpets and guitars and then sold in tourist traps all over Mexico, jostled lazily in the dappled shadows. — Luis Alberto Urrea

My friend,' he said, 'no one is more ired of religion than a priest. — Luis Alberto Urrea

The world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing, and that thing was: story. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Roses denote grace. — Luis Alberto Urrea

They breathed. They felt their lungs fill the sky, and they let the dark clouds inside them flow out. Then they connected to the earth. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Julian wore his favorite good-luck red-striped soccer jersey. He was planning to make money to build cement walls for his mother's house. He was recently married, and he and his wife were expecting a child that October.
His father said Julian had promised to "always behave with respect," and that he would do nothing to cost his father his feelings of pride.
He had a note from his bridge in his pocket. — Luis Alberto Urrea

The government knew a secret that the American public didn't: the numbers of border crossers were down, across the board. Maybe the fence, maybe the harsh new atmosphere — Luis Alberto Urrea

I once made the mistake of writing a story with David Corbett. The man smoked me. He can delineate the character and personality of an accordion in three strokes. I didn't even know accordions had character. This act of generosity and wisdom from a very good writer will help anyone who is staring at a blank page, any day, any time. Highly recommended. — Luis Alberto Urrea

Cruz made the sign of the cross over them. He hefted his rifle onto his shoulder and walked away. His warriors followed, blessed by the Lord, reconciled, holy in this day He had made, and ready to shoot. — Luis Alberto Urrea

The sky peeled back for a moment, and a weak ray of sunset spilled over the scene like the diseased eye of some forgetful god
the light bearing with it cold in place of heat. — Luis Alberto Urrea

I am in the earth and the earth is in me — Luis Alberto Urrea