Quotes from Gloria E. Anzaldúa

I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me.

A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.

Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar. (Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.)

Books saved my sanity, knowledge opened the locked places in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.

Depression is useful. It signals that you need to make changes in your life, it challenges your tendency to withdraw, it reminds you to take action.

What we say and what we do ultimately comes back to us so let us own our responsibility, place it in our hands, and carry it with dignity and strength.

Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

Enough of passivity and passing time while waiting for the boy friend, the girl friend, the Goddess, or the Revolution.

I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.

I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails.