Below are quotes which have appeared in past issues of Latinidad®. If you have a quote you would like to share, please contact me at marcelalandres@yahoo.com.
“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.”—Chinese Proverb
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”--Oscar Wilde
“Language is a social event.”—Richard Rodriguez
“What the imagination seizes as beauty must be the truth.”-- John Keats
“The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.”--Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”--Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”—Margaret Mead
“If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”--Toni Morrison
“What you need to write a novel, of course, is a deadline.”—Chris Baty, author of No Plot? No Problem!
“Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.”--Anthony Burgess
“People often apply to programs for a variety of reasons: to complete a manuscript, to qualify themselves to teach on the college level, to live and work within a community of writers, and/or to escape back into academia from ‘the real world.’ But here’s the real reason. . . . you are staking a claim to being a writer, and you’re letting everyone around you know it. Lots of people talk about being a writer; you’re doing something about it.”—Tom Kealey, The Creative Writing MFA Handbook
“Even the best writer has to erase.”—Spanish Proverb
“At some point in life, return to your ancestral home, be it a specific neighborhood or an entire continent, to learn from the roots within you. . . . If nothing else, you’ll leave with the satisfaction that you witnessed the same sunset as your ancestors, and that your boots collected the same dust.”—Stephanie Elizondo Griest, 100 Places Every Woman Should Go
“El latino is a walking embrace.”—Hector Tobar, Translation Nation
“Beginning things is the first sign of intelligence. Finishing what you have begun is the second.”—Panchatantra
“It could be true and never have happened.”—Ana Menendez, author of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
"The one who tells the stories rules the world."—Hopi Proverb
“When we share our talents and passion with others, it generates love"--Ana Nogales, author of Latina Power
“Even genius is tied to profit.”--Pindar
"It is never, never too late, in a story or in real life, to correct."--Nancy Thayer
"He who is outside his door has the hard part of his journey behind him.”--Dutch Proverb
"The day you decide to do it, is your lucky day.”-Japanese Proverb
"If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.”-Henry David Thoreau
"When Fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald."--Leonardo da Vinci
"The pain of the discipline is short, but the glory of the fruition is eternal.”--Harriet Beecher Stowe
"Writing is only a guided dream.”--Jorge Luis Borges
"Words should be as clothes, carefully custom-made to fit the thought.”-Jules Renard
"The luck of having talent is not enough, one must also have a talent for luck.”--Hector Berlioz
"Life is ten percent as we make it and ninety percent as we take it.”-Irving Berlin
"Saying and doing do not eat at the same table.”--Antonio Perez
“What is written without effort is read without pleasure.”--Samuel Johnson
"The Word will always come first, and if it is a poetic word, so much the better.”--Efrain Huerta
“You may sell your work, but not your soul."--John Ruskin
"Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is a painting that speaks.”--Simonides
"The first draft of anything is shitty.”-Ernest Hemingway
"We earn our living with what we do, but we make a life with what we give.”--Chinese Proverb
"The best way to make your dreams come true is waking up”--Paul Valery
"True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.”--La Rochefoucauld
"Only a person who does absolutely nothing, never makes a mistake.”--Mexican Proverb
"If you want to get good service, serve yourself.”--Italian Proverb
"Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone.”--John Cheever
“What is false in the science of facts may be true in the science of values.”--Santayana
"You need to get up there and give it away so you can keep it."--From Smoking Lovely by Willie Perdomo. Copyright 2003 by Willie Perdomo. Published by Rattapallax Press, New York, NY
“Most people only do what they are asked to do; success comes to those who do a little more.”--Karl Kraus
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune.”--Cervantes
“Who desires to see, desires also to be seen.”--Puerto Rican Proverb
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”--Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”--George Bernard Shaw
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”--Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.”--Anais Nin
"If you bring forth what is inside of you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside of you, what is inside of you will destroy you."--The Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas
"Traveler, there is no path; paths are made by walking."--Antonio Machado
