Six Kinds of Sky Quotes

“I can't believe how many students don't read. They want to be writers, but they haven't read anything at all. They have looked at book covers, which usually allows them enough expertise to sneer, but they haven't read the books. How many young poets "don't like" poetry? How many fiction writers don't know Lehane from Nevada Barr?”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Even if, at the moment, you can't sit down and do the gruntwork of stringing verbs and nouns together, you are writing. It is a way of seeing, a way of being. The world is not only the world, but your personal filing cabinet. You lodge details of the world in your sparkling nerve-library that spirals through your brain and coils down your arms and legs, collects in your belly and your sex. You write, even if you can't always "write."
However, writers write. Active, not passive.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“I was not only invited to read: I was expected to read. Reading was my responsibility, in English and Spanish. Like many poor kids before me, I was given the best gift anyone could hope for--a library card.

On Saturdays, my mother and I would take the #11 bus downtown. I'd haul my stack of the week's books inside and come back out with a new armload. I was a millionaire.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Even if, at the moment, you can't sit down and do the gruntwork of stringing verbs and nouns together, you are writing. It is a way of seeing, a way of being. The world is not only the world, but your personal filing cabinet. You lodge details of the world in your sparkling nerve-library that spirals through your brain and coils down your arms and legs, collects in your belly and your sex. You write, even if you can't always "write.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“And afterward, I stopped at Red Cloud's grave to pay my respects to the old chief. Some Oglalas had left him tobacco ties, little sacred bundles in all the colors of the four directions. I asked him to take care of my woman out there, where she was new and maybe lost. I asked him to take her into his lodge and protect her until I could come for her. That's all I remember.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Did it hurt to die?" I finally ask. "Well," he says, "it hurt before I died." "Were you afraid?" "Of course. I listened for you, but you never came." My stomach tightens. "I wanted to be there. I couldn't get to you. Don't you think it hurt me to let you die?" He smiles. "I know," he says.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Braulio rises and extends his hands, making peace.

"No hay pedo," he says, the absurd lower-class slang for "There's no trouble here," which can only be translated as "There is no fart between us.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Cuquis can read. She pores over a Bible the missionaries have given her.

"Listen to this," she says. "'Let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass. And its flower falls off. And the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So too the rich man in his pursuits will fade away.'"

Several of the women mutter, "Amen."

"Good old Jesus Christ," Cuca says. "He'll kick the shit out of those rich bastards.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Florida was his destination. He didn't care about Miami, Disneyworld, the Keys. He was feeling primordial, reptilian in his rage. He was a wild car thief. He belonged in a swamp. He aimed himself at the Okefenokee like a pistol. Pogo territory. Spiders as big as your hand, cottonmouths, malaria. Crazy dark continent dreams, a vanishing act.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“What time are you going to work?" Manuel says.

"Now, brother."

"Well, fuck."

"No other way." Lalo shrugs.

"That's life," Manuel agrees.

"That's life."

"Life."

"Fucking life!”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Women and dogs," Julio said. "A good one only needs to be beat two or three times." He laughed.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“Do they do this in California?" he asked.

"You'd get arrested for disturbing the peace."

He thought for a moment, and said, "We don't have any peace.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“You're a genius."

"I'm a woman.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“And, crossing into Louisiana: They ambushed Bonnie and Clyde in some of these bushes. A hail of machinegun bullets, that was the way to end a love story, not a bare bed, missing tampons, and panties tucked into your front pocket.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“She was being folkloric. Hubbard was supposed to be charmed. But since the demise of his Previous Marriage, about five and a half days ago, he'd been sullen. He once read about a Sioux warrior named Cranky Man, and now he thought: That's me.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

“El Yauco is the mountain that stands across the Baluarte from Rosario. The top of it looks like the profile of John F. Kennedy in repose. The only flaw in this geographic wonder is that the nose is upside-down.

Once, when Jaime and I had painfully struggled to the summit to investigate the nose, we found this message:

MOTHER NATURE HAS NO RESPECT FOR YANQUI PRESIDENTS EITHER!”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction