Latin American Quotes & Sayings

The Latin American drug cartels have stretched their tentacles much deeper into our lives than most people believe. It's possible they are calling the shots at all levels of government. — William Colby

Latin American Art is an operational term used to describe art actually made in the more than twenty countries that make up Latin America and that encompass Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. — Mari Carmen Ramirez

I'm a writer. In Latin America, they say I'm a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I'm also an American writer. — Isabel Allende

Latin, as we all know, ultimately broke down into Spanish, Italian, French, and so on. One wonders whether there will be an imperial parallel with English breaking down into, shall we say, North American, European, Australian, and so on. On the other hand, there is this immense, inward-driving influence of radio and television that is bringing us all back together. One could say it's a fight between the two: a fight between regionalism and the standardization through communication. — William Golding

I think Latin American cultures are really rich and fascinating. I like the pomp and circumstance of some of their rituals and ceremonies. — Bitsie Tulloch

I think of all those who believed in a Latin American paradise and died in a Latin American hell. — Roberto Bolano

An increase in the relative price of products from the low wage manufacturers in Asia and Latin America will also make those products less attractive to American consumers. — Martin Feldstein

Imagine, there is almost no possibility for a foreign language film to be distributed in America right now. That doesn't just make the industry poorer, it makes the landscape of cinema poorer, in America. The impossibility to get a good release on a really good European, Latin American, Asian movie is a tragedy. — Guillermo Del Toro

To most Europeans, I guess, America now looks like the most dangerous country in the world. Since America is unquestionably the most powerful country, the transformation of America's image within the last thirty years is very frightening for Europeans. It is probably still more frightening for the great majority of the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans, but are Latin Americans, Asians and Africans. They, I imagine, feel even more insecure than we feel. They feel that, at any moment, America may intervene in their internal affairs with the same appalling consequences as have followed from American intervention in Southeast Asia. — L. Fletcher Prouty

My wife said I look like a Latin American dictator. I said, 'That's what I am' — Oscar De La Renta

Faced with the numbering logic of neoliberal regimes, literature offers an intervention in order to consider identity and voice, to consider representation in both the political and artistic sense of the term... [Literature and art] cultivate tension between an unresolved past and present, between invisibility and exposure, showing the dualities of face and mask that leave their trace on identitarian struggles today. — Francine Masiello

Being more missional might actually mean doing fewer things. There is a Latin American proverb that says, "If you don't know where you're coming from, and if you don't know where you're going, then any bus will do." Some congregations are clearly riding too many busesl What they need is not more flurry, but more focus. Becoming disciplined about being a missional church can provide such a focus.[16 — Michael Frost

American Heritage Dictionary: "The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. . . . In general, the Usage Panel accepts the split infinitive." Merriam-Webster Unabridged online dictionary: "Even though there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive, the subject has become a fixture of folk belief about grammar. . . . Modern commentators . . . usually say it's all right to split an infinitive in the interest of clarity. Since clarity is the usual reason for splitting, this advice means merely that you can split them whenever you need to." Encarta World English Dictionary: "There is no grammatical basis for rejecting split infinitives. — Steven Pinker

I do feel fortunate to have some knowledge of the great Latin American writers, including some that are probably not that well known in English. I'm thinking of Jose Maria Arguedas, whom I read when I was living in Lima, and who really impacted the way I viewed my country. — Daniel Alarcon

I grew up having two different perspectives - one in English, one in Spanish. Two different cultures, very different - but I think that, to me, it's one. I'm just as American as I feel Latin. — Prince Royce

Latin life is rich with warmth, family values and history. I want to bring that beauty into American homes. — Cristina Saralegui

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

Curitiba is not a paradise. We have all the problems that most Latin American cities have. We have slums. We have the same difficulties, but the big difference is the respect given by people due to the quality of the services which are provided. — Jaime Lerner

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence. — Noam Chomsky

In many Latin American countries, the historic ties of Catholic bishops with the political elite rendered them less sensitive to the conditions of the poor and especially of indigenous people. — Moises Naim

Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of Sacralizing person and community. — Ivan Illich

My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another. — Sandra Cisneros

I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America. — Ruben Blades

In my own opinion, the average American's cultural shortcomings can be likened to those of the educated barbarians of ancient Rome. These were barbarians who learned to speak--and often to read and write--Latin. They acquired Roman habits of dress and deportment. Many of them handily mastered Roman commercial, engineering and military techniques--but they remained barbarians nonetheless. They failed to develop any understanding, appreciation or love for the art and culture of the great civilization around them. — J. Paul Getty

My whole life, when I was growing up, not one race has ever accepted me, ... So I never felt connected or attached to any race specifically. I had a very American upbringing, I feel American, and I don't speak Spanish. So, to say that I'm a Latin actress, OK, but it's not fitting; it would be insincere. — Jessica Alba

Well, by the standards of a lot of countries, by Latin American standards, it wasn't so bad. — Paul A. Volcker

Ironically, Latin American countries, in their instability, give writers and intellectuals the hope that they are needed. — Manuel Puig

In America there is really very little knowledge of the literature of the rest of the world. Of the literature of Latin America, yes, But that's not all that different in inspiration from that of America, or of Europe. One must go further. You don't even have to go too far in terms of geography - you can start with the Native Americans and listen to their poetry. — Chinua Achebe

Fresno Bulldogs: This gang is one of the few California Hispanic gangs not to claim allegiance to the Surenos or Nortenos. Latin Kings: This Chicago-based group consists of more than 160 cliques in 30 states and has as many as 35,000 members. Mara Salvatrucha (or M.S. 13): This violent Hispanic organization has origins in El Salvador. It has roughly 8,000 members in the United States and another 20,000 outside the United States. Bloods: With its roots in Los Angeles, this African American street gang exists in 123 cities and 33 states. Crips: Also founded in Los Angeles, this African American gang exists in 40 states and has 30,000 to 35,000 members. Gangster Disciples: This Chicago-based African American gang is active in at least 31 states and has more than 25,000 members. Vice Lord Nation: This Chicago-based African American gang has around 30,000 members in 28 states. — Steven Briggs

The most important thing Paris gave me was a perspective on Latin America. It taught me the differences between Latin America and Europe and among the Latin American countries themselves through the Latins I met there. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people. — Ernesto Che Guevara

Furthermore, the Latin American nuclear-weapon free zone which is now nearing completion has become in several respects an example which, notwithstanding the different characteristics of each region, is rich in inspiration. — Alfonso Garcia Robles

When it comes to cyber conflicts between, say, America and China or even a Middle Eastern nation, an African nation, a Latin American nation, a European nation, we have more to lose. — Edward Snowden

The Latin American photographer has the possibility, and the means, for naming the things of our world, for demonstrating that there is another kind of beauty, that the faces of the First World are not the only ones. These Indian, black, plundered white and mestizo faces are the first element defining the demographic content of our photography. — Edmundo Desnoes

Carefully studying the delicate form of the doll, she was thinking how easy it was to wish for things as a child. Then nothing seemed impossible. Growing up, one realizes how many things one cannot wish for, the things that are forbidden, sinful. Indecent. — Laura Esquivel

My heart is a Latin American food stall and your love is a health inspector from Zurich. — Tom Robbins

I'm a multi-lingual Kundalini-dancing shapeshifter to the 69th degree.
I know French, Italian, Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Greek, Latin, Gaelic, Scottish, English, and American English.
I'm cunninglingual. — Sienna McQuillen

In order to do 'Amores Perros,' I had to skip some time at drama school, so the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu came up with a great Latin American solution, which was to say I had a tropical disease and had to stay in Mexico for a while. Everyone believed me. — Gael Garcia Bernal

In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population. — Lin Biao

To understand our world, we must use a revolving globe and look at the earth from various vantage points. If we do so, we will see that the Atlantic is but a bridge linking the colorful, tropical Afro-Latin American world, whose strong ethnic and cultural bonds have been preserved to this day. For a Cuban who arrives in Angola, neither the climate, nor the landscape, nor the food are strange. For a Brazilian, even the language is the same. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

The Latin American debt that reached crisis levels from 1982 would have been sharply reduced by return of flight capital - in some cases, overcome, though all figures are dubious for these secret and often illegal operations. — Noam Chomsky

We are not only a Latin American nation, we are an Afro-American nation also. — Fidel Castro

We expect 'Narcos' will be an enormous success throughout everywhere in the world and maybe out-index in Latin America, given the Brazilian star and Brazilian director and heavy Latin American cast and that we shot the show entirely on location in Colombia. — Ted Sarandos

A citizen of the United States, means a member of this new nation. The principle of government being radically changed by the revolution, the political character of the people was also changed from subjects to citizens.
The difference is immense. Subject is derived from the latin word 'sub' and 'jacio', and means one who is under the power of another; but a citizen is an unit of mass of free people, who, collectively, possess sovereignty .
Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others. Each citizen of a free state contains, within himself, by nature and constitution, as much of the common sovereignty as another. In the eye of reason and philosophy, the political condition of citizens is more exalted than that of noblemen. Dukes and earls are the features of kings, and may be made by them at pleasure; but citizens possess in their own right original sovereignty. — David Ramsay

Thus, in that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, of the Mexican war as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott's army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American war as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America. And so on, to the limited extent that any one person, however he or she strains, can "see" history from the standpoint of others. — Howard Zinn

When my mother was born on 14 April, he named her after a Latin American holiday, the Day of Americas, that nobody knew about. My due date also happened to be 14 April. — America Ferrera

Just about every Latin American country has sent players to the big leagues, from the Dominican Republic to Costa Rica. — Cheech Marin

The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. — Henry A. Wallace

I love American food, but I also love Latin food. — Prince Royce

I didn't ever consider poetry the province exclusively of English and American literature and I discovered a great amount in reading Polish poetry and other Eastern European poetry and reading Russian poetry and reading Latin American and Spanish poetry and I've always found models in those other poetries of poets who could help me on my path. — Edward Hirsch

Far from being dominated by ideas from Paris and New York, Latin American artists were often the innovators. They were doing drip paintings in advance of Pollock, creating language art before the American conceptualists, and fashioning shaped canvases decades before Kelly or Stella. — Mari Carmen Ramirez

I knew about some experience on the operational part of the CIA with Latin American services and so forth having to do with torture. But this was the first time that the CIA was openly advocating for permission to be able to torture. And that seemed to me so abhorrent that I wanted to disassociate myself from the CIA for the first time since 1963, because I didn't want to be associated in any way, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture. — Ray McGovern

Following this logic, to bomb BASF in Ludwigshafen would be to mock the people who bombed BASF in Brazil. The Latin American comrades feel differently. BASF does as well. — Red Army Faction

Many years ago, I started a foundation [Wayuu Taya Foundation] to help improve the life of Latin American indigenous people, providing them with food, medical attention, education, and also focusing on sustainability. — Patricia Velasquez

Robots can now milk cows. Oil prices have fallen globally, meaning both the petro-states and those indirectly propped up by them are weakened. At the same time, slower growth in China has lately shrunk its voracious appetite for African, Australian, and Latin American commodities. China accounted for more than a third of global growth in recent years, and its growth engine multiplied the growth of many of the countries that exported raw materials to Beijing. That has slowed. China's total debt has grown from roughly 150 percent of its GDP in 2007 to around 240 percent today - a massive increase in one decade that is dampening its growth and its imports and shrinking China's wallet for foreign aid and investment in African and Latin American commodity-exporting countries. In — Thomas L. Friedman

A lot of individuals I've met that I've done a song or two with. But to be honest I'm not incredibly familiar with the scene. I mean, I'm more familiar with people coming from other countries like Latin-American MCs and African rappers ... that type of stuff I'm really starting to get a hold on. — Immortal Technique

Nothing exceptional [would happen to the world under a Hillary Clinton's presidency] - things would stay the same: sponsorship of "Color" or "Umbrella" or whatever "revolutions", some more coups, "regime changes", direct invasions, bombing, propaganda warfare against China, Russia, Iran, South Africa and what is left of the Latin American revolutions. There would be plenty of torture in "secret centers", but it would not be as advertised and glorified as it would be if [Donald] Trump were elected. — Andre Vltchek

Should a woman keep her pants on in the streets or not? Shall she remove them, say, at the moment of going to church, for a more intimate reminder of her sexuality in relation to God? What difference does it make if that woman is a lemon vendor and sells you lemons in the streets without using underwear? Moreover, what difference would it make if she sits down to write theology without underwear? The Argentinian woman theologian and the lemon vendors may have some things in common and others not. In common, they have centuries of patriarchal oppression, in the Latin American mixture of clericalism, militarism and the authoritarianism of decency, that is, the sexual organisation of the public and private spaces of society. However, — Marcella Althaus-Reid

It's not that the Davenports had never had black people around their house before, or even a Chinese guy once, but never a Malaysian who looked Chinese to some and Indian to others, fancied himself black at times, and wanted to be the next Lenny Bruce Lee; a preppy black football player who sounded like the president and read Plato in Latin; and a white woman who occasionally claimed to be Native American. They were like an overconstructed novel, each representative of some cul-de-sac of idiolect and stereotype, missing only a handicapped person - No! At Berkeley we say handi-capable person - and a Jew and a Hispanic, and an Asian not of the subcontinent, Louis always said. — T. Geronimo Johnson

Latin guys dance. American guys don't dance. That's a big difference. — Sofia Vergara

My friends who are not from Sweden tell me that I'm more reserved or maybe more ... I guess the opposite of what a Latin American would be. Maybe because Scandinavians are more careful with their words and I guess it takes a lot to become a friend of a Swede. — Robyn

I'm a first generation American. My mother is Italian and Russian and a lot of other things, and my father is Uruguayan. In fact, my mother's been married twice, and both men were Uruguayan. So I grew up in a very European/Latin American-influenced home. — Sebastian Arcelus

No, I had no problem communicating with Latin American heads of state - though now I do wish I had paid more attention to Latin when I was in high school. — Dan Quayle

Am I Latin? Am I American? What the hell am I? I love my culture and I'm very proud of my culture. — America Ferrera

us?" Hal's analytical brain was working hard. "It can't be a personal grudge. You get along with everybody. You haven't any personal enemies. It can't be political - you don't mix in politics. There are lots of revolutionaries in these Latin American countries with axes to grind, but you've never had anything to do with that sort of thing. So it must be economic." "What — Willard Price

I know all the Latin-American rhythms quite well, but I don't play them exactly like they do in their own country - I add my personal touch. — Dizzy Gillespie

My father was an interpreter for all the Latin American pilots at the naval base. He was very well educated. My mother was a hairdresser who sang every day. — Pepe Serna

The greatest promotion I ever had on a newspaper was when 'The Washington Post' suddenly promoted me from city-side general assignment reporter to Latin American correspondent and sent me off to Cuba. Fidel Castro had just come to power. It was a very exciting assignment, but also very serious. — Tom Wolfe

Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States. — Henry A. Wallace

The Mexican debt crisis, Latin American debt crisis, the crises of the 1990s, the Wall Street stock market crash, and other events should have reminded us, and did remind us, that financial instability remains a concern, remains a problem. — Ben Bernanke

The Ecuadorean and Latin American press is not like the European or North American press, which has some professional ethics. They are used to being above the law, to blackmail, to extort. — Rafael Correa

I think in terms of the themes that I have worked on most is establishing questions of race in the context of Latin America. This is a theme that makes uncomfortable a lot of people, and it obviously makes the Latin American Left uncomfortable. — Bocafloja

Jennifer Lopez has been very much in the news because of her divorce from Marc Anthony, also a top singer, a top player in Latin music, her joining the cast of judges on "American Idol." But the music has not been at the forefront. — Jennifer Lopez

Panama's a really wonderful country. There's obviously the Panama Canal, which brings a lot of tourism, and a huge American influence; it's just a mix of so many great things: African, Caribbean, Latin American Spanish, all kinds of influences there. — J. August Richards

The European powers had been anxious to see the United States become embroiled in a civil war and eventually break into two smaller and weaker nations. That would pave the way for their further colonization of Latin American without fear of the Americans being able to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. — G. Edward Griffin

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the '70s, China in the '80s and '90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. — Naomi Wolf

The Latin American Left, the criollos, direct descendents of Spaniards, they don't want to accept that they are the whites of Latin America. They don't want to talk about race. The discussion for them is based on class struggle, rich against poor, but doesn't offer the possibility of a dialogue about racial questions. — Bocafloja

Conflict with the United States is one of the overwhelming facts of Latin American history. — Stephen Kinzer

Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama's style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots - the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. But do we want to become the world's largest banana republic? — Thomas Sowell

The battle for the gospel in the opening years of the twenty-first century is being fought not primarily in the lecture rooms of North American seminaries but in the shanty towns, urban slums and villages of Africa, Asia and Latin America. — Brian Stanley

One of the reasons why I agreed to do commercials is that they gave me complete freedom. I just had to have the car in it and write a story around it. I wanted to do something serious set in a Latin American country, but again, it was an exercise in style for me. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

OUCH

"The arrabal (a term used for poor neighbourhoods in Argentina and Uruguay) and carpa (informal mobile theatre set up inside tents, once common in Latin America), with their caliente (hot) rhythms such as the rumba or the cha-cha-cha, were conquering audiences all over the world, a trend allegorised in song lyrics about their popularity among the French and other non-Latin Americans - "The Frenchman has fun like this/as does the German/and the Irishman has a ball/as does even the Muslim" ("Cachita") - even as they filtered in the presence of a blackness - "and if you want to dance/look for your Cachita/and tell her "Come on negrita"/let's dance" - denied in the official discourse of those Spanish=speaking countries wielding the greatest economic power in the region: namely, Argentina and Mexico, the latter of which would eventually incorporate Afro-Latin American culture into its cinema - although being careful to mark it as Cuban and not Mexican. — Robert McKee Irwin

During the 1990s the United States sought to impose the 'Washington Consensus' on Latin American governments. It embodied what Latin Americans call 'neo-liberal' principles: budget cuts, privatization, deregulation of business, and incentives for foreign companies. This campaign sparked bitter resistance and ultimately collapsed. — Stephen Kinzer

The United States has means to wound Latin American countries deeply, chiefly by altering trade policies to cut imports in ways that would throw thousands out of work. — Stephen Kinzer

Clearly, Valdez was an apologist for the industrialists and polluters, the big American companies that dominated Costa Rica and other Latin American countries. Not surprising to find such a person here, since the CIA had controlled Costa Rica for decades. This wasn't a country; it was a subsidiary of American business interests. And American businesses did not give a damn for the environment. — Michael Crichton

There's no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most - many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country. — John Perkins

I think I'm an American writer writing about Latin America, and I'm a Latin American writer who happens to write in English. — Daniel Alarcon

Latin American countries are part of the West and that it is reasonable to expect a certain degree of openness in their societies that we do not demand of, say, China or Vietnam. — Mark Falcoff

Why had Ovid lived in Ancient Rome in 20 BCE and not Chicago in 2006 CE? Would Ovid still have been Ovid if he had lived in America? No, he wouldn't have been, because he would have been a Native American or possibly and American Indian or a First Person or an Indigenous Person, and they did not have Latin or any other kind of written language then. So did Ovid matter because he was Ovid or because he lived in ancient Rome? — John Green

When I say Afro-American aesthetic, I'm not just talking about the United States, I'm talking about the Americas. People in the Latin countries read my books because they share the same international aesthetic that I'm into and have been into for a long time. And it's multicultural. — Ishmael Reed

It's challenging being a woman. There are other kinds of obstacles that come your way, but there are many times that being Latin has actually helped me, being a Cuban-American has helped me. — Eva Mendes

Although the American Standard Version (1901) had used "Jehovah" to render the tetragrammaton (the sound of y being represented by j and the sound of w by v, as in Latin), for two reasons the Committees that produced the RSV and the NRSV returned to the more familiar usage of the King James Version. (1) The word "Jehovah" does not accurately represent any form of the divine name ever used in Hebrew. (2) The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian church. — Anonymous

Almost 85 percent of the Latin American market is subject to net neutrality rules, and the European Parliament already favors strong ones. — Marvin Ammori

Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa. — Walter Salles

But even before Obama had a chance to carve out a name for himself as a drone-happy serial killer in the Middle East, the US made it clear that it was not going to play benign hegemon in its Latin American backyard. — Liza Featherstone

So Lorenzo grew up in Chile without arms, an unfortunate situation for any child, but he also grew up in Pinochet's Chile, which turned unfortunate situations into desperate ones, on top of which he soon discovered that he was homosexual, which made his already desperate situation inconceivable and indescribable. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that Lorenzo became an artist. (What else could he do?) — Roberto Bolano

It's no secret that Cuba is a typical Latin American culture in that it has a fair amount of homophobia. Homosexuals have been notoriously persecuted under Fidel's government. — Rachel Kushner

We as Americans of Latin descent are just as American as anyone else of any other descent. — Esai Morales

Latin American republics were among the first to discover that it was relatively painless to default when a substantial proportion of bondholders were foreign. — Niall Ferguson

When I was very young I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which later would be called "boom fiction." — Sandra Cisneros