Straightening the ruffles on the curtains, she could not forget it. Stirring the soup in the kitchen while Josefina bit her lips and waited for her t… - Kathleen Alcalá

In the desert, deep inside the spiny center of the cactus, nests a bird no bigger than my finger. While the sharp thorns fend off animals that would eat the eggs, the parent birds come and go at will. And this was my mother's name, "living at the heart of the spiny cactus," Chiri, what others would call Hummingbird. The last time I saw her was on the way to Casas Grandes. (first lines)

We are not going to eradicate poverty by bombing people. ("Dear John: A Letter to a Friend Following 9/11")

[He] had another secret in his heart. Every night his heart spoke to him. He did not understand what it was trying to say. It knocked loudly at the inside of his chest, so loudly that he feared that it would wake his wife, sleeping gently beside him. (p173)