“...There was nothing one could do when love came. It was fast, and it was strong, and if it were not good, then surely God would not have allowed it such power.”
―
Luis Alberto Urrea,
The Hummingbird's Daughter
“Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“This is how Heaven works. They're practical. We are always looking for rays of light. For lightning bolts or burning bushes. But God is a worker, like us. He made the world — He didn't hire poor Indios to build it for him! God has worker's hands. Just remember — angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“Words are the only bread we can really share.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea
“Owls visited them at night. Some thought the owls were witches. Some thought they were angels of death. Some thought they were holy and brought blessings. Some thought they were the restless spirits of the dead. The cowboys thought they were owls.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“That is the prize: to realize, at the end, that every minute was worth fighting for with every ounce of blood and fire.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“There is a minute in the day, a minute for everyone, though most everyone is too distracted to notice its arrival. A minute of gifts coming from the world like birthday presents. A minute given to every day that seems to create a golden bubble available to everyone.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“When you died, you died in small doses. You had trouble speaking. You forgot who was beside you. You were suddenly furious and in a panic of outrage. You wished you could be saintly. You wished you weren't so weak. You suddenly felt better and fooled yourself into believing that a miracle was about to happen. Well, wasn't that all a dirty rotten thing to pull on somebody.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“Everybody knew that being dead could put you in a terrible mood.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“What we take from granted in the United States as being Mexican, to those from southern Mexico, is almost completely foreign. Rural Mexicans don't have the spare money to drown their food in melted cheese. They don't smother their food in mounds of sour cream. Who would pay for it? They have never seen "nachos." In some regions of the south, they eat soup with bananas; some tribal folks not far from Veracruz eat termite tacos; turkey, when there are turkeys, is not filled with "stuffing"―but with dry pineapples, papaya, pecans. Meat is killed behind the house, or it is bought, dripping and flyblown, off a wooden plank in the village market. They eat cheeks, ears, feet, tails, lips, fried blood, intestines filled with curdled milk. Southerners grew up eating corn tortillas, and they never varied in their diet. You find them eating food the Aztecs once ate. Flour tortillas, burritos, chimichangas―it's foreign food to them, invented on the border.They were alliens before they ever crossed the line.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story
“I’m grateful to the following writers, whose work you should read if you want to learn more about Mexico and the realities of compulsory migration: Luis Alberto Urrea, Óscar Martínez, Sonia Nazario, Jennifer Clement, Aída Silva Hernández, Rafael Alarcón, Valeria Luiselli, and Reyna Grande.” ― Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt
“Big Angel could not reconcile himself to this dirty deal they had all been dealt. Death. What a ridiculous practical joke. Every old person gets the punch line that the kids are too blind to see. All the striving, lusting, dreaming, suffering, working, hoping, yearning, mourning, suddenly revealed itself to be an accelerating countdown to nightfall.....This is the prize: to realize, at the end, that every minute was worth fighting for with every ounce of blood and fire.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“And everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific--it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west. Shopkeepers came from their rooms to stand in the street. Families brought out their invalids on pallets and in wheelbarrows to wave their bent wrists at the madness consuming their sky. Swirls of gulls and pelicans like God's own confetti snowed across those sky riots.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“If it was the Border Patrol’s job to apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and the dying.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story
“On that long westward morning, all Mexicans still dreamed the same dream. They dreamed of being Mexican. There was no greater mystery.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
“Why was he thinking about work? About the past? It was over. It was all over. He was never going to work again. “This second,” his father liked to tell him, “just became the past. As soon as you noticed it, it was already gone. Too bad for you, Son. It’s lost forever.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“Roses denote grace.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“The sky peeled back for a moment, and a weak ray of sunset spilled over the scene like the diseased eye of some forgetful god -- the light bearing with it cold in place of heat.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, Into the Beautiful North
“Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“This is how Heaven works. They're practical. We are always looking for rays of light. For lightning bolts or burning bushes. But God is a worker, like us. He made the world — He didn't hire poor Indios to build it for him! God has worker's hands. Just remember — angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“Words are the only bread we can really share.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea
“Owls visited them at night. Some thought the owls were witches. Some thought they were angels of death. Some thought they were holy and brought blessings. Some thought they were the restless spirits of the dead. The cowboys thought they were owls.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“That is the prize: to realize, at the end, that every minute was worth fighting for with every ounce of blood and fire.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“There is a minute in the day, a minute for everyone, though most everyone is too distracted to notice its arrival. A minute of gifts coming from the world like birthday presents. A minute given to every day that seems to create a golden bubble available to everyone.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“When you died, you died in small doses. You had trouble speaking. You forgot who was beside you. You were suddenly furious and in a panic of outrage. You wished you could be saintly. You wished you weren't so weak. You suddenly felt better and fooled yourself into believing that a miracle was about to happen. Well, wasn't that all a dirty rotten thing to pull on somebody.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“Everybody knew that being dead could put you in a terrible mood.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“What we take from granted in the United States as being Mexican, to those from southern Mexico, is almost completely foreign. Rural Mexicans don't have the spare money to drown their food in melted cheese. They don't smother their food in mounds of sour cream. Who would pay for it? They have never seen "nachos." In some regions of the south, they eat soup with bananas; some tribal folks not far from Veracruz eat termite tacos; turkey, when there are turkeys, is not filled with "stuffing"―but with dry pineapples, papaya, pecans. Meat is killed behind the house, or it is bought, dripping and flyblown, off a wooden plank in the village market. They eat cheeks, ears, feet, tails, lips, fried blood, intestines filled with curdled milk. Southerners grew up eating corn tortillas, and they never varied in their diet. You find them eating food the Aztecs once ate. Flour tortillas, burritos, chimichangas―it's foreign food to them, invented on the border.They were alliens before they ever crossed the line.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story
“I’m grateful to the following writers, whose work you should read if you want to learn more about Mexico and the realities of compulsory migration: Luis Alberto Urrea, Óscar Martínez, Sonia Nazario, Jennifer Clement, Aída Silva Hernández, Rafael Alarcón, Valeria Luiselli, and Reyna Grande.” ― Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt
“Big Angel could not reconcile himself to this dirty deal they had all been dealt. Death. What a ridiculous practical joke. Every old person gets the punch line that the kids are too blind to see. All the striving, lusting, dreaming, suffering, working, hoping, yearning, mourning, suddenly revealed itself to be an accelerating countdown to nightfall.....This is the prize: to realize, at the end, that every minute was worth fighting for with every ounce of blood and fire.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“And everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific--it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west. Shopkeepers came from their rooms to stand in the street. Families brought out their invalids on pallets and in wheelbarrows to wave their bent wrists at the madness consuming their sky. Swirls of gulls and pelicans like God's own confetti snowed across those sky riots.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“If it was the Border Patrol’s job to apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and the dying.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story
“On that long westward morning, all Mexicans still dreamed the same dream. They dreamed of being Mexican. There was no greater mystery.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“Poverty ennobles no one; it brutalizes common people and makes them hungry and old.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
“Why was he thinking about work? About the past? It was over. It was all over. He was never going to work again. “This second,” his father liked to tell him, “just became the past. As soon as you noticed it, it was already gone. Too bad for you, Son. It’s lost forever.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels
“Roses denote grace.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter
“The sky peeled back for a moment, and a weak ray of sunset spilled over the scene like the diseased eye of some forgetful god -- the light bearing with it cold in place of heat.” ― Luis Alberto Urrea, Into the Beautiful North
