Quotes by Ana Castillo

“It was not at all premeditated. I just started writing, and it got out of hand.”

“There are things coming from me that I felt I wanted to talk about. My search for my own blend of spirituality, my acknowledgement of my sexuality, my being the single mother of a young man.”

“Hes still my most important project in progress. There were years even though he was living with me, he went away emotionally. The last years Ive seen him coming back and maturing. Im betting that in a few years, hell be my best friend.”

“I started having dreams that there was a home for me there. The desert motivates me in a very different way than the city. Theres a very harsh brutality that calls upon your survival instincts. Its a harshness that is very beautiful to me. I feel very much a part of this wilderness.”

“Im concerned about a lot of serious border issues. This book is about the border reality and the struggles of the undocumented worker.”

I ask the impossible: love me forever.Love me when all desire is gone.Love me with the single mindedness of a monk.When the world in its entirety,and all that you hold sacred advise youagainst it: love me still more.When rage fills you and has no name: love me.When each step from your door to our job tires you--love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me.Love me when youre bored--when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,or more pathetic, love me as you always have:not as admirer or judge, but withthe compassion you save for yourselfin your solitude.Love me as you relish your loneliness,the anticipation of your death,mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.Love me as your most treasured childhood memory--and if there is none to recall--imagine one, place me there with you.Love me withered as you loved me new.Love me as if I were forever--and I, will make the impossiblea simple act,by loving you, loving you as I do

Women Are Not RosesWomen have no beginningonly continualflows.Though rivers flowwomen are notrivers.Women are notrosesthey are not oceansor stars.i would like to tellher this buti think shealready knows.

Poverty has its advantages. When youre that poor what would you have that anyone would want? Except your peace of mind. Your dignity. Your heart.The important things.

It is beautiful to capture the soul of another being, isnt it? i nod and add, particularly when it has been a special person. We are talking about friendship, that has its own tenets so we are not talking about romantic/love/sex capture of another soul but the true captivation of anothers spirit, which happens between people of the same sex sometimes.

Women endure the labor of childbirth and men send themselves to war! But I gave birth to eight children and never once did I cry like I saw some of those men out there before they even fired their first shot! I think it has something to do with the unnaturalness of killing compared to the naturalness of giving birth.

When our mother is seen only as the one-dimensional Mary of modern times, instead of the great dual force of life and death, She is relegated to the same second-class status of most women in the world. She is without desires of Her own, selfless and sexless except for Her womb. She is the cook, the mistress, bearer and caretaker of children and men. Men call upon Her and carry Her love and magic to form a formidable fortress, a team of cannons to protect them against their enemies. But for a long, long time the wars that women have been left to wage on behalf of men, on behalf of the human race, have started much sooner, in the home, in front of the hearth, in the womb. We do what we must to protect and provide for our young our families, our tribes

something about giving himself over to a woman was worse than having lunch with the devil...

The hour that was for them, for us, for all who had awakened one morning to see their fields covered with blood rather than harvest, who didnt seek to change the world but lived in good faith and prayer offered to an imposing God, for the young women who mended their mens clothing and held their sons mouths to the purple nipples of sweet breasts, for the man who watched the suns descend behind the mountain every evening and dreamed and when his sons were grown, passed on his dreams, for the black nights when guitars harmonized with the winds song, to the bottle of regional brew, and a hand-rolled cigarette, to the baptism and a dance of celebration, to the aroma of soups simmering on wood-burning stoves and filled the bellies of those who worked the fields, to a candle that burned in vigil while a hungry mind gulped the printed truth of anothers legacy, to the owl that called from between the moon and earth while lovers enwrapped their passion on silver tinted grass, to the history of the world and to its future, to all that had lived and died and had been born again in that moment as i approached am opaque window and pointed my weapon.