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

— Esmeralda Santiago When I Was Puerto Rican (1993)

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More quotes by Esmeralda Santiago

How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unknown?

Conquistadora (2011)

I wondered if men ever talked like this, if their sorrows ever spilled into these secret cadences.

When I Was Puerto Rican (1993)

“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.”

Conquistadora (2011)

“I didn’t leave Puerto Rico. A mí me sacaron,” she tells me, referring to her exodus from Puerto Rico as a girl from San Juan. “I think nobody would prefer to leave that way.”

Puerto Rican Author Esmeralda Santiago On Preserving Boricua Stories: “They Belong To Us”" in Remezcla (2018)

What doesn't kill you, makes you fat.

When I Was Puerto Rican (1993)

All Esmeralda Santiago quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Esmeralda Santiago (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.