119 Quotes by Luis Alberto Urrea

[W]hen your politics no longer have room for empathy, things spin into an amoral chaos. Not only the desperate suffer. Who gets hurt and who stays safe becomes hard to predict.

Numbers never lie, after all: they simply tell different stories depending on the math of the tellers.

Tell me," Big Angel said. "Did I do anything good in your life?" "You gave me the books." It was instantaneous."Yes. All the books--that was pretty good. I gave you good ones.""And bad ones.""True. But all books are good, man. Imagine no books.

Minnie said, "Better not to ask." "That's our family in a nutshell.""You got that right.

Death is alive, they whispered. Death lives inside life, as bones dance within the body. Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.

There were other things, though. There were always more details trailing any good story. Like tin cans on the back bumper of a newlywed’s car. Rattles and pings and wonderful small moments spinning in the wake of a great life.

She is a karateka," La Osa replied. "Nayeli could karate-kick you to death where you sit.""That's hardly feminine." He sniffed."Perhaps," Nayeli suggested, "it is time for a new kind of femininity.

No wonder Americans seemed crazy to everybody else--they were utterly alone in the vastness of this ridiculously immense land. They all skittered about, alighting and flying off again like frantic butterflies. Looking for--what? What were they looking for?

There is a minute in the day, a minute for everyone, though most everyone is too distracted to notice its arrival. A minute of gifts coming from the world like birthday presents. A minute given to every day that seems to create a golden bubble available to everyone.