Quotes from Esmeralda Santiago

I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.

But Miguel is the last Argoso and I intend to raise him under my roof, with my values, and, yes, even my prejudices and perhaps some of my vices. That's my prerogative, you see, as the patriarch of this family.

It seemed too complicated, as if each one of us were really two people, one who was loved and the official one who, I assumed, was not.    

Plito, chicken Gallina, hen Lápiz, pencil y Pluma, pen. Ventana, window Puerta, door Maestra, teacher y Piso, floor.

She'd worried at the beginning when she first met them that there were too many patrones. But within weeks she was sure that there was really one boss, and that the other three were working for her.