Kathleen Alcalá Quotes

By becoming a writer, you can rewrite history. ("Your Grandmother Might Have Been Mayor, or Why Write?", 1990)

what doesn't seem like much to you now, could mean a lot to someone else. We each know what we went through, but we can only guess at the odds facing young women today. But from among them will come the next century's Sor Juana or Matilda Montoya or Hermila Galindo or Elena Poniatowska or Margarita Prentice or Hermelinda Gonzalez. We are here speculating on futures, gambling that they will make it, against the odds, but with our faith and support bearing them up on wings of success. ("Against All Odds")

That's how dreams are. Nothing ever quite happens, but you assume it's going to. It's as though your mind stops wasting energy on the image once it thinks you understand what's going on. (p163)

Providing the narrative thread to life is one of the oldest functions in culture. People need storytellers. They make sense out of life. Instead of being an abstract concept, a road without an end, life becomes something that we can touch, hear, feel, taste, see. Chekhov gave us the Lady with the Dog, James Joyce gave us Leopold Bloom, Sandra Cisneros gave us Woman Hollering Creek, and by creating the specifics of a life, they give us a sense, they make sense of, life.

Not only are each of us part of the whole, but a single act of kindness is an act of universal grace. A single act of cruelty is a falling away of a bit of the whole for which we are all striving.

this is the role of the writer. By telling stories, we weave a narrative thread that ties our experiences together. The aftermath of September 11th has been flooded with stories of heroic deeds, of mysteries, loss, and simple friendship. In other words, the full tapestry of the human experience. This is how we make sense of the world. Storytelling is the glue of civilization. ("Words That Heal, Words That Bind", 2001)

what I'm writing about in each of these novels is the notion that these are people who look around at the society they live in or the culture they live in and say, "This isn't necessarily where I belong. I need to change my place in history and I need to change my place in this culture."

Writers collect things. We read magazines, we ride buses and eavesdrop on other people's conversations, we stop and read posters on telephone poles, we examine soup cans and old clothing stores and babies and pets and sewer covers and weather reports. We delve into ancient history, old gossip, rumors, hints of rumors, maps, brochures, irrelevant details, bad advice, good omens, lucky stars, and things that are nobody's business. In short, we are called to be witnesses. Things may happen, but unless someone takes note of it, it might not matter.

Border literature implies the ability to dip into both cultures and step back and forth across the border. This area was a place of cultural convergence long before the Spanish or Americans showed up. By its very nature, the Southwest has always encouraged the cross-pollination of cultures, so border literature appeals to me.

Once you start talking about people as individuals, which I try to do in my fiction, it's impossible to say that any group of people can be excluded from full human rights.

In a novel or a movie, it’s often silence that communicates what cannot be said through words.

We remake our world by reimagining it, by sharing our idea of the world.

Although his name would be forgotten, his family and belongings scattered, the ideas he helped to perpetuate would live on. The seeds of human dignity had been planted and were not easily stamped out. (p177)

What I do know is that a writer's main job is to always be open to the possibilities of story. Like the interconnected lakes, old stories lead to new ones, and lead to new ways of seeing and living in the world. Like Amalia clutching her yellow roses, I will continue to follow these stories wherever they lead me. ("The Skeleton in the Closet" September 24, 2003)

For many people their story begins the moment their families arrive here. That’s only one way of telling their story.