18 Quotes by Esmeralda Santiago

In the twenty-one years I lived with my mother, we moved at least twenty times.

It' her life, and she' in the middle of it.

We came to Macun when I was four, to a rectangle of rippled metal sheets on stilts hovering in the middle of a circle of red dirt.

Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are.

What doesn’t kill you, makes you fat.

How can you know what you’re capable of if you don’t embrace the unkown?

For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.

I learned you pay for your happiness. That’s why 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.

Another train will come. Why rush? Why worry? Why go crazy? Another train will come. And sure enough, another train going my way was pulling into the station. My bad mood evaporated. I entered the car smiling, certain that there would be more missed trains in my life, more closed doors in my face, but there would always be another train rumbling down the tracks in my direction.