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Luis Alberto Urrea Quotes

Powerful Luis Alberto Urrea for Daily Growth

In the end, I'm really interested in people and what we do with our short time here on earth. I'm interested in the human soul.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Soul, People, Here, Short Time

Borders are liminal spaces. Anyone worthy of the title of 'writer' is a border writer. We all are border people.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Border, Borders, Anyone, Worthy

I saw 'The War Wagon' with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, but it was dubbed into German. And it had Japanese subtitles and then this little strip with some Spanish words, and I've never forgotten that weird image. It was so magical and funky.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Some, German, Wagon, Kirk

I don't like to see people get kicked around. You have to stand up for them.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

People, Like, Them, Kicked

I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Made, Them, Had, Attached

The tone of 'Into the Beautiful North' is really the way I write. 'Hummingbird's Daughter' was the anomaly. It was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Tone, I Write, North, Anomaly

I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Grace, Karma, Political, Theological

When I was doing missionary work when I was younger, which started this obsession of mine with the literature of witness, I was a translator for a missionary group, and I spent years in a Tijuana dump. People were really thrown by the fact that the Mexican poor, many of them pureblood indigenous people, seemed happy.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Happy, Doing, Fact, Translator

There is beauty in our roots. Sometimes we think our roots are shameful, and people tell you that you're no good or your ancestors are no good or that you come from a neighborhood of no hope and terrible crime. But it's about the beauty of those places, and I carry that with me.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Beauty, Sometimes, Tell, Ancestors

Many of us writers tour like a literary Bachman Turner Overdrive. We ain't pretty, but we're on the road. Many of us wish we were rock stars anyway. For my part, I live in my iPod. The musicians there are my constant companions on the road.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Constant, Part, Literary, Turner

I love books with titles like, 'How Do You Spank a Porcupine?,' 'Arnie, the Darling Starling,' or 'The Bat in My Pocket.'

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Love, Like, Darling, Titles

Way back when I was working at the dump, I saw that, even when living among the trash, that some people would decide to choose joy in their lives.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Living, Some, Lives, Trash

The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Stupidity, Two, Worlds, Fences

Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Every Day, San Diego, Back, Diego

During grade school, we moved to a white, working-class suburb in San Diego, and there were no Mexicans.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Working-Class, San, Moved, Diego

My dad looked like Errol Flynn, and I think my mom thought she was moving into a hacienda, but they lived on a dirt street in Tijuana, a house jammed with relatives, nobody speaking English. She didn't know a word of Spanish. She grew up well and was appalled and humiliated, terrified of anyone ethnic.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Thought, I Think, Dad, Relatives

Writing went from being a calling to being a job. Business ruined things. It became like making sausages in a sausage factory.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Making, Factory, Became, Ruined

When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Dying, Left, Four, Wonderland

The concept of a literature of witness - of bearing witness - has embedded in it the need for action. One must not simply hide in the shadows and type; one must also stand in the light.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Need, Concept, Bearing, Embedded

It's not like Mexicans have an illegal immigration organ in their body and at 14 kicks off a hormone and shows them how to come to the United States illegally. It's a question of desperation for a vast majority of them.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

United, Organ, Vast Majority, Illegal Immigration

I used to work with a relief group that took care of the people in the dump. We took them food and water and medicine and built homes and took them to church services, whatever was needed.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Work, Took, Built, Relief

I missed the Wilco phenom while busy obsessing over rock en Espanol. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at O'Hare getting on a plane with my Chi-town homeboy, Jeff Tweedy. I loved the guy right away and loved his family. How odd to know somebody before you listen to them. I don't know if that's bad or good.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Bad, Away, Plane, Right Away

I've been told not to tour down in Mexico. I am too well-known now. The kidnappers may think that my publisher will pay a ransom.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Think, Been, Well-Known, Publisher

A lot of our family was undocumented. My mom and dad were both super conservative. My dad had a green card; my mom was an Eisenhower Republican who did not approve of all the 'illegal people.'

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Conservative, Mom And Dad, Card

I've been treated beautifully wherever I've gone, and I really think we all want to love each other.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Love, Think, Treated, Wherever

I read most often in bed as part of my attempted sleep ritual. But I spend a lot of time reading on planes and in hotels, too.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Bed, Read, Ritual, Attempted

I'm always fascinated by the disjunct between what's really happening on the ground and the propaganda machine that feeds America alarmist news about immigration.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Immigration, News, Always, Feeds

I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Motivation, Racism, Often, Nationality

The French-Cajun culture is similar to mine - they're Catholic, they play accordions, and they eat hot chiles.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Play, Similar, Mine, Catholic

It's the most absurd story. I grew up in the dirt streets of Tijuana, dying of all kinds of diseases - tuberculosis, fevers, all that - and it somehow turned into this charmed life. I don't know exactly how.

- Luis Alberto Urrea

Streets, Turned, Kinds, Charmed

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