Spanish One Word Quotes & Sayings

There is a funny story I always tell my students...when I came for the first time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they take leads to success" ~smile — Pablo

That got her up on stage pretty quick, and she sang a song, which was in Spanish, so I don't know what it was about, except she seemed to be singing it mainly to Sharisse and it had a word that sounded like "poota" in it a lot. — Dave Barry

With the rise of classical Greece, the soul debate evolved into the more familiar heart-versus-brain, the liver having been demoted to an accessory role. We are fortunate that this is so, for we would otherwise have been faced with Celine Dion singing "My Liver Belongs to You" and movie houses playing The Liver Is a Lonely Hunter. Every Spanish love song that contains the word corazon, which is all of them, would contain the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, "I [liver symbol] my Pekingese. — Mary Roach

I come from Divisadero Street. Divisadero, from the Spanish word for 'division,' the street that at one time was the dividing line between San Francisco and the fields of the Presidio. Or it might be derived from the word divisar, meaning 'to gaze at something from a distance.' (There is a 'height' nearby called El Divisadero.) Thus a point from which you can look far into the distance — Michael Ondaatje

If I could be God for a day, I would instantly replace July and August with two Septembers so the twelve months of the new calendar year would consist of January, February, March, April, May, June, September, September, September, October, November, December. On second thought, I'd also replace December with another September, thus deleting the Mas season and ending the year with a fourth September. The Mas season, once known as Christmas until we took Christ out of it, leaving only mas, the Spanish word for more, is my least favorable month of the year because of the greed-mandated financial, emotional and spiritual stresses that the economy-dependent celebration of Mas imposes. — Lionel Fisher

Mocho was a Spanish word that meant maimed or referred to something that had been lopped off like a stump. To call Homer el mocho was, essentially, to call him "Stumpy" or "the maimed one."
It doesn't sound particularly flattering, but among Spanish speakers the giving of nicknames is tantamount to a declaration of love. Things that would sound insulting outright in English were tokens of deep affection when said in Spanish. — Gwen Cooper

Nurse. Registered Massage therapist. Yoga instructor. She considered al of the above programs and costed out notions, and returned, always, to the library, to its heat, the fragrance of dried pages like pressed leaves, its quietude. Something else is present here too: oscuridad - the Spanish word for darkness, which Juliet believes contains so much more than its translation. The oscuridad in here mirrors her own: one tiny darkness amidst the darkness of a multitude of minds seeking illumination, dead and alive trapped in dormant words. She thinks she can hear the oscuridad, her cheek pressed to the fake wood of the carrel she has earned; she can hear it, even though the library's lights are forever on. — Carrie Snyder

English was such a dense, tight language. So many hard letters, like miniature walls. Not open with vowels the way Spanish was. Our throats open, our mouths open, our hearts open. In English, the sounds were closed. They thudded to the floor. And yet, there was something magnificent about it. Profesora Shields explained that in English there was no usted, no tu. There was only one word - you. It applied to all people. No one more distant or more familiar. You. They. Me. I. Us. We. There were no words that changed from feminine to masculine and back again depending on the speaker. A person was from New York. Not a woman from New York, not a man from New York. Simply a person. — Cristina Henriquez

I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant. Not: 'This is Dominican food. This is a Spanish word.' I trust my readers, even non-Spanish ones. — Junot Diaz

He said "cool" like I say a Spanish word when I'm not sure of the pronunciation. — Kelley Armstrong

Thanks," he said. "De nada," said Julius. "What does that mean?" said Charlie. "It's nothing, in Spanish." said Julius. "I mean, it means nothing, the word nothing, not that it doesn't mean anything, though of course it doesn't mean anything, it means something: it means nothing. Nothing is what it means. Not that it doesn't mean anything." "No, it means nothing, I know what you mean." said Charlie with a straight face. They started to giggle. — Zizou Corder

In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb VACILAR ... It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction. — John Steinbeck

When you were talking about the caste system, I was thinking about how Mexicans still have to come to terms with this in our own culture. We spoke earlier about the castas paintings that were made during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Mexico. The Spanish, establishing a form of racial apartheid, delineate the fifty-three categories of racial mixtures between Africans, Indians, and the Spanish. And they have names, like tiente en el aire, which means stain in the air; and salta otras, which means jump back; or mulatto, a word that comes from mula, the unnatural mating between the horse and the donkey. "Sambo" is now a racial epithet in the US, but it was first used as one of the fifty-three racial categories in the castas paintings. — Amalia Mesa-Bains

What does that word mean?" Cassidy asked. Her voice was soft, sexy. Mind-blowing. "Querida, or whatever you said? I don't speak Spanish."
"It's a term of endearment. An Anglo might say darling or honey."
"What was the other one you used? Me ha?
"Mi ja. Short for mi hija. It's what you say to someone you care about."
She smiled. "When you say that you sound
I don't know
affectionate."
"Maybe I like cats," Diego said.
Cassidy rested her hand on his chest, and her smile widened. "Meow. — Jennifer Ashley

He said he was not afraid because years before a witch doctor gave him a charm against evil spirits.
"Let me see that charm," I asked.
"It's words," he said. "It's a word charm."
"Can you say them to me?"
"Sure," he said and he droned, "In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritus Sancti."
"What does it mean?"
He raised his shoulder. "I don't know," he said.
"It's a charm against evil spirits so I am not afraid of them."
I've dredged this conversation out of a strange-sounding Spanish but there is no doubt one of his charm, and it worked for him. — John Steinbeck

When did swearing become so easy? You still would never swear in front of your parents or most adults, but when you're with your friends it's like every fifth word. Why couldn't learning Spanish be that easy? — Charles Benoit

My father old Cosway, with his white marble tablet in the English church at Spanish Town for all to see. It have a crest on it and a motto in Latin and words in big black letters. I never know such lies. [ ... ] "Pious", they write up. "Beloved by all." Not a word about the people he buy and sell like cattle. "Merciful to the weak", they write up. Mercy! [ ... ] I can still see that tablet before my eye because I go to look at it often. I know by heart all the lies they tell - no one stand up and say, Why you write lies in the church? — Jean Rhys

'Negro' can refer to anyone with dark hair as well as dark skin, and I've been used to the word being used in Spanish in this way all my life. — Luis Suarez

What is the Spanish word for wife? Esposa.
What is the Spanish word for handcuffs? Esposas.
That's not a coincidence. — Peter Rogers

What I said was: We want everybody to learn English because we don't want - I didn't use the word 'Spanish.' — Newt Gingrich