People From Illinois

"He had a gift for saying unpleasant things in the most charming manner."

"At only the age of 15, Louie Bellson asked a question that would change jazz music forever: What if one bass drum just isn't enough? After pioneering the technique of playing two bass drums at the same time, Bellson became ingrained with the most influential big bands of the '40s, including those around Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Duke Ellington. Consistently blending genres in his work, Bellson also wrote a Broadway musical, Portofino."

"The test of character is not 'hanging in there' when the light at the end of the tunnel is expected, but performance of duty and persistence of example when the situation rules out the possibility of the light ever coming."

"But I was a changed and better man for my introduction to philosophy, and especially to Epictetus. I was on a different track--certainly not an anti military track, but to some extent an anti-organization track. Against the backdrop of all the posturing and fumbling that peacetime military organizations seem to have to go through, to accept the need for graceful and unself conscious improvisation under pressure, to break away from set procedures, forces you to be reflective as you put a new mode of operation together. I had become a man detached-not aloof but detached-able to throw out the book without the slightest hesitation when it no longer matched the external circumstances. I was able to put juniors over seniors without embarrassment when their wartime instincts were more reliable. This new abandon, this new built-in flexibility I had gained, was to payoff later in prison."

"Everybody does have to play the game of life. You can't just walk around saying, "I don't give a damn about health, or wealth, or whether I'm sent to prison or not." Epictetus says everybody should play the game of life-that the best play it with "skill, form, speed, and grace." But like most games, you play it with a ball. Your team devotes all its energies to getting the ball across the line. But after the game, what do you do with the ball? Nobody much cares. It's not worth anything. The competition, the game, was the thing. The ball was "used" to make the game possible, but it in itself is not of any value that would justify falling on your sword for it. The ball-game analogy, incidentally, is almost a verbatim quote of Epictetus's explanation to his students in Nicoipolis, colonial Greece, 2,000 years ago."

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while senior naval officer in the prisoner-of-war camps of North Vietnam. Recognized by his captors as the leader in the prisoners' of war resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Adm. Stockdale was singled out for interrogation and attendant torture after he was detected in a covert communications attempt. Sensing the start of another purge, and aware that his earlier efforts at self-disfiguration to dissuade his captors from exploiting him for propaganda purposes had resulted in cruel and agonizing punishment, Rear Adm. Stockdale resolved to make himself a symbol of resistance regardless of personal sacrifice. He deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all the prisoners of war. By his heroic actions, at great peril to himself, he earned the everlasting gratitude of his fellow prisoners and of his country. Rear Adm. Stockdale's valiant leadership and extraordinary courage in a hostile environment sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service."

"Stoicism is a noble philosophy that has proven to be more practicable than a modem cynic would expect. The Stoic viewpoint is often misunderstood because the casual reader misses the point-that all talk is in reference to the "inner life." Stoics belittle physical harm, but this is not braggadocio. They are speaking of it in comparison to the devastating agony of shame they fancied good men generating when they knew in their hearts that they had failed to do their duty vis-Q-vis their fellow men or God. Though pagan, the Stoics had a monotheistic natural religion and were great contributors to Christian thought. The fatherhood of god and the brotherhood of man were Stoic concepts prior to Christianity. In fact, Chrysippus, one of their early theoreticians, made the analogy of what might be called the soul of the universe to the breath of a human (pneuma, in Greek). Saint Paul, a Hellenized Jew brought up in Tarsus, a Stoic town in Asia Minor, always used the Greek work pneuma, or breath, for soul."

"I know Stockdale has become a buzzword in this culture for a doddering old man. But let's look at the record folks. This guy was the first guy in and the last guy out of Vietnam, a war that many Americans, including your new President, chose not to dirty his hands with. The reason he had to turn his hearing aid on at that debate is because those fucking animals knocked his eardrum out when he wouldn't spill his guts. He teaches philosophy at Stanford University. He's a brilliant, sensitive, courageous individual, and yet he committed the one unpardonable sin in our culture – he was bad on television. And Paddy Chayefsky must be laughing his ass off out there."

"I am impressed by the way God created this world. The damage can be repaired in many instances. But we have to pull together and we have to be responsible. We have an obligation not to destroy just for the sake of today or for the sake of destroying."

"Real happiness, contentment, comes from being at peace with our life because we have a purpose. This is very consoling to me. And I can bear difficulties because I know that I am where God wants me."

"All these ministries are connected in one way or another to the advancement of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. These offices are not ends in themselves. The purpose is to help parishes spread the Gospel and build the Kingdom."

"I enjoy being a pastor, as a pastor, you walk with and care for your flock. The challenge is going to be to shift my focus a little bit. My flock will be the pastors who are under my care, and I will have to walk with and care for them and their flocks."

"I think questions should be welcome, because the only way that people will learn is asking questions. Now, there are two ways of asking questions: one is staking out a claim and another is genuinely seeking an answer."

"I went to Dodge City as the bishop of the diocese, you sent me there for 15 years. I didn't come back as a cowboy."

"Who the poor are brings us the image of Christ. We have to encounter them and know them, not just as a name but as a real person."

"Everything I learned in sports – such as the sacrifice of training hard, solidarity, working as a team – are things I also have to do in the Christian life. What I experienced in soccer helped me a lot to have all the virtues to lead a good Christian life."

"A good administrator of God's temporal goods will have the docility and humility to listen to wise counsel and to follow that counsel prudently so that all things proceed as they should according to God's plan of building up the Kingdom."

"You know, parishes that only serve themselves or any kind of ministries that are inward directed, will die on the vine. It's really when we're outward looking, when we're focused on others that we become fully alive."

"My discernment was that I really want to do the will of God. How I was asked — I felt this was God's will. My position, not only in this, but in life, is that when God is asking me to do something, I want to look for ways to say yes."

"Our world is becoming more and more secularized. In this context, I want our young people to know that God exists, that they are made in His image and likeness and that God has a providential plan for them. Also, a message that I want to share is that having a faith-life through the Church is a source of immense joy and peace throughout your life."

"I relished especially the stories she shares about being a wanderer savoring her solitude, a rare gift for a woman, but absolutely essential for any writer."

"I think, for the most part, borders are bullshit. I have trouble accepting the notion that governments have the right to tell people where they can and can’t go. I’m always suspicious of binaries, whether physical or metaphorical."

"I mostly find myself writing in Spanglish. I think and feel in both languages."

"Poetry is kind of a constant in my life and so that’s something that just won’t ever change because poetry is what allows me to write the prose that I do."

"Erika L. Sánchez writes with persistent care. . . . Reading Sánchez's poems is like watching the world from a train, the exquisite rhythmic blend of the known and the unknown. The world remains always more than we can understand, yet suddenly, thanks to her great poetry, we are pierced by what we know."

"Lessons on Expulsion marks the arrival of a vital new voice in American poetry. With penetrating intelligence and lyrical precision, Erika L. Sánchez makes visible the violence striking down Mexican women living on the border and interrogates the historical and the familial origins of misogyny. Her deft braiding of the beautiful and the grotesque infuses her language with a shimmering rawness and a startling immediacy. Her gaze is unflinching and feminist; it marvels and questions and testifies. Lessons on Expulsion is an uncompromising and singular debut."

"(Do you have any advice for aspiring writers of color?) Build community. You won’t get very far without it. You have to support other writers. Read and promote as much as you can. Also, you have to come to terms with rejection. Not everyone is going to love your work, and that’s ok. You just have to keep going. No matter how accomplished you may be, you probably won’t escape it. Write because you love it, not for fame or recognition."

"Erika’s writing grabs a hold and won’t let go. She’s equal parts pee-your-pants hilarity and break your heart poignancy"

"(“Mexican Daughter” has been banned in a few places. Do you feel if your book has been banned, you’ve actually done something right?) A: I think a lot of people who are upset about these books haven’t read any of them. They’ve just been fed all of these lies that they just perpetuate. I would really like to know, what was it that was so offensive? The mention of abortion, the mention of drugs? I guess people have a problem with that. But I think what people really have a problem with is the title. Because we’re not supposed to take up space. And our stories haven’t been allowed into the mainstream until now and so people are mad that their kids are going to be reading about some ‘hood, Mexican chick in Chicago, It’s so silly to me...It’s very upsetting that they’re so afraid of new ideas and the truth that they hide these texts, hide information to keep this lie going of what the world is."

"Women of color are regularly praised for our resilience, but what's too often overlooked is that our resilience is a response to so many forms of violence. For us, resilience is more than a noble trait; it's a lifestyle that oppression has demanded of us. Either we adapt or we die. Even so, we need not be mere caricatures. Our stories matter, despite what the rest of society would like us to believe."

"I talk about a lot of the things that I talked about in the book in class: I’m always discussing mental health. I’m discussing racism, all the “isms.” I just want them to have information and to have choices because I felt like I didn’t have a lot of choices myself."

"I feel that books choose me when they’re ready. I can’t force them into being."

"A rare one with phosphorescent night-powers & deep-fire mind tools, Erika L. Sánchez"

"A lot of people asked: Why did you start with your vagina? Because I don’t think it’s nasty."

"(Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?) Money. White authors often write about money (or don’t) in a way that disregards the realities of most people. It’s as if they assume that everyone simply has it. Or at least their readers. I remember reading “Fear of Flying,” by Erica Jong, many years ago, for instance, and getting very angry when the protagonist went to Europe for months with no concern for money or a job. I assumed she was relying on family money, but it was never explained. It took me out of the text because I couldn’t get over it. Maybe it’s because I grew up working class and money was a factor in everything we did. Marginalized people could never in their wildest dreams make these kinds of choices. That’s why I always write about the financial realities of my characters. I don’t expect everyone to assume what they are. Those details really matter to me."

"We all see different versions of the same thing. I have written the truest book I was capable of creating. It's the way I've always made sense of the world and my life."

"I grew up thinking I didn't matter, that no one cared what I had to say. The world didn't see me, a daughter of working-class Mexican immigrants, and what it did see, it considered disposable, inconsequential. I rarely found portrayals of anyone like me-bookish and poor and surly and Brown-in the art that I enjoyed. I searched everywhere for a model for the life I wanted, but found few. I wanted to be a writer and travel around the world, but I had no idea how I was going to make that happen. I saw only snippets of that kind of life here and there. Texts like the poetry of Sandra Cisneros were a lifeline. Here was a Mexican girl from Chicago who'd become a writer and traveled alone through Europe. But texts like hers were rare finds for me, because, it seemed, I was the only one in my immediate vicinity looking for them. My teachers didn't often teach books by people of color, and I didn't have mentors or access to the internet, which was rudimentary at that time. The libraries in my community were so limited and hostile toward children that I began stealing books from the bookstore. Today, of course, I know that there were other books out there at the time that spoke to who I was, but they didn't make it into my hands very often. So when no template existed, I did what Lucille Clifton wrote about in her poem "won't you celebrate with me" and made it up."

"I consider Toni Morrison the patron saint of my writing. To write with her level of honesty and clarity is my North Star. Virginia Woolf is referenced in this book again and again, both for her work and for her tragic life, which, I suppose, are one and the same. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz became a model for my rebellion. And the list goes on and on. None of my books could have been written without these extraordinary authors. I'm indebted to all the women who came before, those who paved the way as well as those whose talents were extinguished, buried, or sublimated because the world was afraid of their strength. It's thanks to their rebellions, big and small, that I get to lead this extraordinary life-that is, a life completely of my choosing. I am myself in a world that pressures me to be otherwise, a world that doesn't love me, wasn't for me."

"Kids really do see through our bull and have shorter attention spans."

"We are not going to solve society's problems. People have to do that on their own... If you can’t get your kids to eat vegetables, why is it my job?"

"Had the outcome of Los Alamos been anything less than the threat of man's self-destruction, I daresay what would have stuck longest in everyone's mind is the sheer absurdity, the general wackiness, of the whole operation."

"... on many questions involving science and public affairs those who know cannot speak whereas those who are free to speak often do not do so for fear that their information is not adequate."

"Szilard is one of a brilliant group of Hungarian émigrés, which also included John von Neumann, Michael Polanyi, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller. He believes this remarkable concentration of scientific talent grew out o( a special environment in Budapest at the turn of the century—a society where economic security was taken for granted, a high value was placed on intellectual achievement, and physics was taught so badly that serious students were thrown upon their own resources."

"In the strenous autumn of 1945, when scientist tried to provide legislators with a new set of facts and a new concept of military destruction, two courses were advocated. Leo Szliard called for intensive pressure on key individuals; the scientists' lobby, which helped to establish civilian control of atomic energy, was a collective exercise in this technique. Rabinowitch, while supporting this crash program, argued that the radical change in patterns of political behavior required by the new weapons would be achieved only by the long, painfully slow process of education. The education must begin with the scientists themselves for, said Rabinowitch, the scientists had a lot to learn about how to handle political and social evidence as scrupulously as they used laboratory data, and how to think politically with the same blend of imagination and rationality that they applied to scientific questions."

"By way of conclusion: facility is not enough. Blood and sweat—yes, and tears as well—are the secret of the thing."

"No great height is reached when it is said of you that you are a master of expression. What matters is what you have to say. Is your message big enough for humanity, or is it a reflex of your narrowness and petty prejudice? (October 11th)"

"What crimes and follies are committed by the need for money! Most people live at high pressure . (October 11th)"

"In art and literature I am always on the side of the experimentalist and those who break with tradition, knowing full well that there are some rules of art just as truly as there is a law of equilibrium. These rules a real artist picks up as he does the brush, the pencil, or chisel that have come down from antiquity. But a real artist is also a rebel. Tradition, for all its accepted truisms, is the enemy. The fact that a few accepted or basic facts reveal themselves in all art from the primitive to the classical is not more important than that the iconoclast shall have his day. Within the larger truths there are always a lot of other truths that no one sees till the radical dares to investigate and bring them to light. (October 13th)"

"...instructors never meant much to me. You listen to a teacher and are thankful for his point of view. But your art school is worth while mainly because you learn to be patient and because many others are there who are going in your direction toward creative expression. The atmosphere and contacts are congenial and stimulating. On the whole-the bigger and better school is the world you live in-alone you make your way. (October 7th)"

"An artist will protect his offspring as a hen covers her chicks. Dismiss the created offering of an artist as unworthy, you start a rebellion that savors of outraged paternity. But one never ought to let rejection sink in. He should be up and at it. (October 6th)"