Margarita Engle Quotes & Sayings

Anger is like a disease.
You can catch it.
You can give it. — Margarita Engle

The old life is gone, my days are new,
but time is still a mystery
of wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance.
- Rosa — Margarita Engle

I feel the heaviness of nightmares
even though I am awake.
How weary I am, how sleepless
and hopeless - there is no escape
from the torment
of wishes. — Margarita Engle

I feel like ...
the boy lost somewhere
between the torment of memory
and a few fragile shards
of hope.
— Margarita Engle

I don't understand the whole thrilling verse, but I love the way poetry turns ordinary words into winged things that rise up and soar! — Margarita Engle

Like King Midas, I am left with nothing
but this unreasonable hope
that, somehow, my strange life
and my lost family
will return
to normal. — Margarita Engle

I have spent all my years
accepting sad truths.
- Quebrado — Margarita Engle

My heart drums with gratitude.
My thoughts sing
with hope. — Margarita Engle

What more do I need?
I don't know how my book
will end.
All I know is that love
is not the modern invention
of rebellious young girls.
Love is ancient.
A legend.
The truth. — Margarita Engle

Without even trying to be a teacher,
Fredrika is teaching us,
Showing us how to see things in new ways
Instead of always thinking
The same old thoughts
That have been passed along by strangers
Day after day, year after year
Without any spirit of amazement
Or wonder, — Margarita Engle

Some people are born with words flowing in their veins. — Margarita Engle

There is no place more lonely
Than a rich man's home. — Margarita Engle

In Latin America in general, and Cuba in particular, poets have been the inspiration behind struggles for independence, struggles for freedom of all sorts. — Margarita Engle

I will never understand
the whole world
or even
one country.
All I can do
is try to understand
the truth and lies
in the simplest choices
I face
every day. — Margarita Engle

That is how I think of peace
and peace of mind - as timid birds
that we have to search for,
not bold ones that come
looking for us. — Margarita Engle

Can it be true that freedom only exists when it is a treasure, shared by all? — Margarita Engle

Marriage without love is just one more twisted form of slavery. — Margarita Engle

I would have run away
Into the forest
To live in a nest
Made of dreams
And green leaves — Margarita Engle

Joy and truth both have a way
of peeking through any dark curtain. — Margarita Engle

I envy the trees that grow at crossroads. They are never forced to decide which way to go ... — Margarita Engle

Slavery all day,
and then, suddenly, by nightfall- freedom! — Margarita Engle

I still think of myself
as a broken place, a drifting isle
with no home.
- Quebrado — Margarita Engle

Books are door-shaped portals carrying me across oceans and centuries, helping me feel less along. — Margarita Engle

Danger is a chain ... passed from one wounded child to the next. We must stop the danger by breaking the chain. We must learn how to stay safe and be kind. — Margarita Engle

I can't understand
why dark northern soldiers
and light ones
are seperated into different brigades.
The dead are all buried together
in hasty mass graves,
bones touching. — Margarita Engle

I sing without knowing what my song means, and whether the listening world is amazed or wounded. — Margarita Engle

No matter how invisible
I feel, I will always be wrapped
in the memory
of life as a captive.
- Quebrado — Margarita Engle

Opinions. Ideas. Possibilities. So many! How can I choose? Between bursts of lightning-swift energy, I enjoy peaceful moments when the whole world seems to be a flowing river of verse and all I have to do is learn how to swim. — Margarita Engle

How can people stay sane in a world that makes no sense? — Margarita Engle

I feel certain that words
can be as human
as people,
alive
with the breath
of compassion. — Margarita Engle

My mind soars
and whirls
in a dance
of wild fear
and graceful hope. — Margarita Engle

How long will it be until the two countries I love forgive each other and move on ... I'm not even sure what there is to forgive. Something about Cuba seizing ownership of oil refineries. It's all so confusing. Why should something as ugly as oil affect friendships between nations? — Margarita Engle

When Reason Breaks is infused with a rare blend of suspense and sensitivity, despair and hope. The poetic spirit of Emily Dickinson shines through the gloom of daily struggles faced by modern teens, as they discover the possibilities where they dwell. — Margarita Engle

The child tells me her grandmother
showed her how to cure sadness
by sucking the juice of an orange,
while standing on a beach.
Toss the peels onto a wave.
Watch the sadness float away. — Margarita Engle

Night simply drapes itself over the day
As if someone had lowered a curtain.
The sky glitters and moves,
Filled with shooting stars and fireflies. — Margarita Engle

Hatred must be a hard thing to learn. — Margarita Engle

If only the peace I feel right now
could be stored up and released later
when cruelty surrounds me
in the dark
during nightmares. — Margarita Engle

But love
is a wildly
unpredictable
hurricane wind,
not a swirling
blue ocean
with peaceful
shores. — Margarita Engle

The Little War?
How can there be
a little war?
Are some deaths
smaller than others,
leaving mothers
who weep
a little less? — Margarita Engle

Why can't she see that no two people
are exactly alike? Our hearts and minds
are all different.
Only our dreams share
this same desperate need
to rise
and soar... — Margarita Engle

If we knew how to find
the lost, we would know
how to rediscover
the parts of our minds
left behind
in battle. — Margarita Engle