Hijuelos Oscar Quotes & Sayings

On his back, Robert must have had time to see something beautiful, and not just the ugliness of a city street at the end of life. Even with the tremendous pain in his badly gutted belly he would have looked up beyond the fire escapes and the windows with their glittery trees and television glows, to the sky about the rooftops. A sky shimmery with the possibilities of the death; lights exaggerated, the heavens peeled back- a swirling haze of nebulae and comets - in some distant place, intimations of the new beginning into which he would soon journey — Oscar Hijuelos

He never tried anything other than to kiss her, hold her hand; often, in his company, she felt boredom rise in her like a stifled yawn. — Laura Barnett

Yes. I was, I see now, an asshole who wanted to roll the dice. — Colin Harrison

Observing people taking in the work I had watched Robert create was an emotional experience. It had left our private world. It was what I had always wanted for him, but I felt a slight pang of possessiveness sharing it with others. Overriding that feeling was the joy of seeing Robert's face, suffused with confirmation, as he glimpsed the future he had so resolutely sought and had worked so hard to achieve. — Patti Smith

Clergy are men as well as other folks. — Henry Fielding

Oh yes! ... The sweet summons of God to man. That's when He calls you up to His arms. And it's the most beautiful thing, a rebirth, a new life. But, just the same I'm in no rush to find out. — Oscar Hijuelos

Music infuses your spirit with a certain energy that I try to convey in my work. — Oscar Hijuelos

A great novel is worth one thousand films. — Oscar Hijuelos

I enjoy listening to contemporary rock on the college stations while I'm taking long walks, love gospel and soul music, am fascinated by hip-hop and rap as the new kind of urban 'beat' poetry and, come to think of it, find something interesting about just any kind of music. — Oscar Hijuelos

If I can just stop being so stressed out, maybe my cancer will get better! This is far less scary than treating a disease of unknown etiology. — Heidi Julavits

If you start believing all that press about you, you're in trouble. I don't even read my reviews. — Oscar Hijuelos

When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance. — Oscar Hijuelos

They say you can't escape your past, but I don't believe that. I believe you escape it every day, over and over again, always cognizant of the difference between past and present — Susan Richards

I like to encourage young talented writers to try and help them get published and so forth, but that's all. That's the best I can do. — Oscar Hijuelos

Latins are predisposed to thinking about the past. Catholicism has a lot to do with it because Catholicism is a contemplation of the past, of symbols that are supposed to be eternally present. — Oscar Hijuelos

Nightclubs are the equivalent of a Catholic Church in a poor country. You hear a lot of stuff about churches filled with gold while the people are starving. But what elitists don't get is that for poor people, the church is their own mansion. Nightclubs fill the same function. — Oscar Hijuelos

As a kid I had all kinds of questions about how I fit it with my neighborhood and friends and other Latinos. — Oscar Hijuelos

I teach at Duke, and I have students who are all of twenty who want to write memoirs, and you know it's all pretty interesting stuff, but a lot of them lack gravitas, you know. — Oscar Hijuelos

When you write fiction, you can sort of invent more but also pack it with emotions that are very pertinent to you. Whereas with nonfiction, you have to be as factual as possible but also hopefully - also bring ... emotional relevance to the piece. — Oscar Hijuelos

Mommy loves you more than all the magic in the world. — Maureen Jane Shigeno

Of course, I grew up hearing Latin music but, to be honest, aside from my personal circumstances, like most kids I wanted to rebel against what I considered to be such old fashioned fare. — Oscar Hijuelos

The sad thing is that when movies like this fail, executives think that proves there's no audience for unusual, original pictures - because they think they've made one. — Roger Ebert

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions. — Sherman Alexie

The house in which the fourteen sisters of Emilio Montez O'brien lived, radiated femininity. — Oscar Hijuelos

I have never - I have never let go of my childhood contacts. My best friends from childhood are still my best friends. — Oscar Hijuelos

It's true that immigrant novels have to do with people going from one country to another, but there isn't a single novel that doesn't travel from one place to another, emotionally or locally. — Oscar Hijuelos

People in their forties, fifties, and onward enjoy the whole world of books in a different way than the Internet-age kids do. — Oscar Hijuelos