14 Quotes by Jimmy Santiago Baca

And so I pray I am today as honestwith myself, with life all around me and below and above me,with all who I encounter.

Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.

I am a face in a trance, evoking duende. My face imbues breath and stuns you with star-spirit. I am grove-face, story-teller face, and dawn-bringer face. A face as common as carrots and celery, called upon as a father to be cook, waiter, servant, and maid.

I emerged from the black oil pools in the forgotten house of dreams in the wild backcountry of the heart. I am heir to the sun, child of Mother Earth and the Mayan galaxy. All the mountain cures and healing waters and winds and junipers run deep in my bloodstream.

It's the process of making-do,of the life I've lived betweenbreakdowns and break-ups, that has made lifeworth living.I could not bear a life with everything perfect.

And so I pray I am today as honest with myself, with life all around me and below and above me, with all who I encounter.

I can’t stand the comfort zone. So many people I know, their parents give them their homes, and they get married and have children, or whatever. That’s it. They don’t ever go beyond that. That’s not what life is.

Understanding is the key to everything. To rage, fear, love. If you understand a situation, it’s going to make you mad. Or it’s going to make you feel fearful. If any of us even had a clue as to what Bush and those people were up to, we’d be running stark crazy mad out of fear.

Being a human being without forgiveness is like being a guitarist without fingers or being the diva without a tongue.