18 Quotes by Oscar Hijuelos

The house in which the fourteen sisters of Emilio Montez O'brien lived, radiated femininity.

People in their forties, fifties, and onward enjoy the whole world of books in a different way than the Internet-age kids do.

Nightclubs are the equivalent of a Catholic Church in a poor country. You hear a lot of stuff about churches filled with gold while the people are starving. But what elitists don't get is that for poor people, the church is their own mansion. Nightclubs fill the same function.

I have never - I have never let go of my childhood contacts. My best friends from childhood are still my best friends.

Music infuses your spirit with a certain energy that I try to convey in my work.

Of course, I grew up hearing Latin music but, to be honest, aside from my personal circumstances, like most kids I wanted to rebel against what I considered to be such old fashioned fare.

Latins are predisposed to thinking about the past. Catholicism has a lot to do with it because Catholicism is a contemplation of the past, of symbols that are supposed to be eternally present.

I enjoy listening to contemporary rock on the college stations while I'm taking long walks, love gospel and soul music, am fascinated by hip-hop and rap as the new kind of urban 'beat' poetry and, come to think of it, find something interesting about just any kind of music.

As a kid I had all kinds of questions about how I fit it with my neighborhood and friends and other Latinos.