Quotes from Cristina Henriquez

Estás más perdido que un juey bizco!

And I would discover how much of life is defined by what you want to keep and what you are forced to lose.

People say things all the time with the best of intentions but it's so easy not believe the words that come out of your own mouth.

Physical nearness does not necessarily breed intimacy.

I stopped moving backwards, trying to recapture the past, there might be a future waiting for me, waiting for us, a future that would reveal itself if only I turned around and looked, and that once I did, I could start to move toward it.

You could trace it back infinitely. All these different veins, but who knew which one led to the heart?

No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of México's problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man. I thought maybe if I came here, I could make a difference.

But it was only a word—justice. It was only a concept, and it wasn't enough.

Just trying to blend in. That's the way of the world." "Well, that's the way of America, at least," my mom said.

I mean Ã¢â'¬Â¦ I lost myself. In between." "Oh," I said, and then I just sat there, because something about that idea—that you could be one person in one moment and then wake up and be completely different—punched me in the gut.

En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Am

A while after I was old enough to understand this story, I pointed out how backwards it was to have fled to the nation that had driven them out of theirs, but they never copped to the irony of it. They needed to believe they'd done the right thing and that it made sense.

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.

In between." "Oh," I said, and then I just sat there, because something about that idea—that you could be one person in one moment and then wake up and be completely different—punched me in the gut.

wasn't allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn't feel the thing I was supposed to claim.

She had been waiting for him, every day pouring cupfuls of water into the pots that held his plants, turning them in the sunlight, taking care of them because she thought it was a way of taking care of him.

He says that hope is a very, very fragile thing and that when you steal it from someone, it can be like stealing their soul. He's convinced that taking away hope is much worse than giving someone the truth, and that those were the alternatives he was forced to choose between.

It's like having a child. No matter how much and how closely you mind them, every mother I know has a story about how their child fell off the bed at least once. You can't be there all the time.

I thought suddenly, what is the meaning of all these things? All these bags and bags I've been packing? We could take everything we have with us. We could take every single thing that every single person in the world has ever had. But not of it would mean anything to me. Because no matter how much I took and no no matter how much I had for the rest of my life, I didn't have him anymore. I could have piled everything from here straight to heaven. None of it was him.

Sin pies ni cabeza.

They were torn between wanting to look back and wanting to exist absolutely in the new life they'd created

I learned something about grief. When someone dies, it doesn't leave a hole, and that's the agony.

And they spoke so fast!

No one here wants to admit it, but the United States is part of México's problem. The United States is feeding the beast, man.