People From New York City

"The enslaved community has no material wealth, not even having ownership of their own bodies. They can lose their children, their homes, their very lives. They often lose their physical abilities which is the measure of their only value in their masters' eyes. But their spiritual beliefs and inherent gifts sustain them. They cling to that which cannot be taken away and that gives them the strength to overcome all that they have lost. Spirituality and memory are the bedrock of their existence. Storytelling is the conduit for passing on those qualities that will allow them to endure."

"When physical reality becomes unbearable, then an alternative is needed. My characters don't escape from objective reality, they simply exist in a more complex worldview than is the norm in the world they are forced to inhabit. Their perception of the world goes beyond that of the Western imaginary. Whether you call it magic or mysticism or religion or spirituality, it is that which binds the characters and allows for their survival in spite of the violence of their lives."

"My writing begins with dreaming, journaling and meditation."

"I want you to soar. I want you to go out and find your path and create your own story. (p321)"

"Don’t forget that the artist still has to be a woman. Nourish them both. (p317)"

"(How did Daughters of the Stone come to being?) It evolved over a long period of time for many reasons. One important reason was the absence of authentic stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans in American literature. I wanted to tell our stories, our way. When I started, I thought I was going to write memoir. Very soon it became evident that I would need the freedom of fiction to include the many stories that had not been told. It wasn't about me. It was about a whole group of people who had been erased from our national dialogue."

""Nightmares are for people who refuse to listen to their hearts. People who have lost their way, who are hollow. Fear slips into those hollow places. It is the very emptiness that draws the fear." (p164)"

"“...We all have stories. Sometimes the pain lies so heavily inside us that it can only be whispered. Sometimes it can't be spoken out loud at all. So you think you're different? There are many silences. You've got one kind but each of us has her own. Listen and you will hear them all around you...You're not alone in your pain, never have been. We're all part of each other's pain and can be a part of each other's healing too. But when you clutch on to the first, you'll miss out on the second.” (p19)"

"“What you’ll be left with in the end will sustain you much more than any illusion you may have brought with you. Because here in addition to all the problems of poverty, political intrigue, corruption, jealousy, and sociological and historical denial, you’ll also find familia, respeto, dignidad, amor, trabajo, cariño. And yes, you will find racism, alive and well, just like you left it up north.” (p297)"

"I don't map out my novels. I go where my characters take me. In Daughters of the Stone, I wanted to explore how the past acts as a foundation for supporting the present and building towards the future. I also wanted to explore art, and especially storytelling, as healing and guiding mechanisms in our society."

"The babble that rose around them as they stood on the pier was deafening. It sounded like no speech Pola had ever heard, the words, jagged, grating sounds that attacked the ear."

"These are the stories. My stories, their stories—just as they were told to my mother and her mother and hers. They were given to me for safekeeping, and now I give them to you. (first lines, Prologue)"

"Being a daughter of very strong Afro-Puerto Rican rural women, I could never understand the stereotype of the submissive, defeated woman who had no options and no power. I was surrounded by monumentally powerful and talented women who never got a chance to showcase their potential outside their homes and their communities. I got a good taste of it as a child in my South Bronx community. When I was sent to Puerto Rico during my formative years, ties to the past were solidified and I had a better understanding of where I came from and what gifts had been bequeathed to me. Those women who came before me didn't have the option of sharing their stories in public, but thanks to their sacrifices, I could, and I do share the stories with a much broader audience. Writing gave me a vehicle for bringing readers into the world I grew up in."

"Like a primeval wave, these stories have carried me, and deposited me on the morning of today. They are the stories of how I came to be who I am, where I am. (p14)"

"(What advice do you have to give to budding writers?) Read, read, read. Read everything and pay attention. What works for you? What doesn't? Decide which writers you love and learn from what they put on paper. Equally important, find those you don't love and learn what not to do."

"“Remember the time before the hurting, for that’s where the healing lives. Find the joy of the before and know you can find it again. You have a big heart and there are many paths to healing.”"

"“We all carry our nightmares in unspoken places. The details are different, but the outcome is the same. They want to steal our humanity, to ease the weight into their own souls. Don’t you let them. Don’t give them one piece of you they can’t take. Don’t you become the empty vessel they want to believe you are.”"

"“When are you going to see that the only way we can carry our burdens is to share them?” (p310)"

"She knows for certain that the poisonous barb of humiliation has done much more damage than the lash ever did. (p277)"

"Remember to open your heart. Learn to recognize gifts offered on your journey. (chapter 25 p325)"

"Your body is only a vessel. Your essence is inviolate. It is only when you give up your soul that you are lost."

"From the time she walked away from the tortured captives, she never has a moment that is not recorded in the book of their collective memory. Their wrath lives in the atmosphere like the charged air before a hurricane. (chapter 17, p230)"

"I love the African proverb “you’ll never know what happened on the hunt until you speak to the lion.” I think many readers realize that, for the most part, the story we have gotten has been from the perspective of the conquerors. That is why is it so important for us to tell our own stories. What we have been taught has been distorted, one-sided, self-serving, and incomplete, at best. I think readers are thirsty for another narrative, one that feels more authentic and truthful."

"This new woman is a mystery. To be black and a slave is to live wounded. To be black and a slave and be born in this place is to know nothing but darkness. To be a bozal, black, and a slave, who remembers the time before, is to carry a double wound, living in the darkness while constantly remembering the light. This warrior woman is wounded, lost, and still struggling against the dark. The light, not yet gone, flickers in her eyes. Interesting... (p28)"

"I couldn't write my stories without the constant presence of my ancestors who await me in my dreams and my meditations, whispering their stories and reminding me of what I have forgotten. This book is dedicated to them because their stories have lived for too long under the waters of the Caribbean, unrecognized and in imposed silence. Let there be light to illuminate as-yet-to-be-told truths."

"Working the knots has taught me something: to wait is not to waste time; to wait is to take time to see, to listen, to unfold and untangle what has come before. (chapter 10 p120)"

"They take her in, questions hanging from their eyes. (chapter 16, p211)"

"She moved by rote, dragging her grief into the fields with her. (chapter 12 p149)"

"I trust my readers to make the connections that interest them. I am a fiction writer and therefore, I have a lot of latitude. I can bend time, moving historical events like natural disasters from one decade to another, in the service of my narrative. Some interpret my work as being grounded in the Latin American school of magical realism. That’s fine. Practitioners of traditional African religions recognize themselves in the symbology of my work. That’s fine too."

"Pola closed her eyes. She thought about all that had already been taken from her; her lovely fingers, her teeth, her body, her untouched womanhood, her laughter. But they hadn't taken everything. She clung to her faith, her soul, and her secret-the seed she knew was growing deep within her."

"You have a sense of humor, Mr. Kazam. That’s a rare thing in the religious."

"God help the human race if you thugs are its fighters for liberty."

"It was then that I drifted into the nut cult business. I found out that all you need for capital is a stock of capitalized abstract qualities, like All-Knowingness, Will-Mind-Urge, Planetude and Exciliation. With that to work on I can make my living almost anywhere on the globe."

"“He began with the complicated salute of the Astral Confederation and got down to business. ‘Brother Kazam,’ he said, ‘I wish to show you an ancient sacred book I have just discovered.’ I laughed, of course. By that time I’d already discovered seven ancient books by myself, all ready-translated into the language of the country I would be working at the time. The ‘Isba Kazhlunk’ was the most successful; that’s the one I found preserved in the hide of a mammoth in a Siberian glacier.”"

"They were immigrants into the sea; like all immigrants they longed for the Old Country. Then the second generation. Like all second generations they had no patience with the old people or their tales. This was real, this sea, this gale, this rope! Then the third generation. Like all third generations it felt a sudden desperate hollowness and lack of identity. What was real? Who are we? What is NEMET which we have lost? But by then grandfather and grandmother could only mumble vaguely; the cultural heritage was gone, squandered in three generations, spent forever. As always, the fourth generation did not care."

"Greed advise with hate; greed wins; greed always wins."

"Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you state secrets, but I've noticed at home that a state secret is something known to everybody who makes more than fifty thousand a year and to nobody who makes less."

"Mound Bayou was an oasis in turbulent times. While the rest of Mississippi was violently segregated, inside the city there were no racial codes ... At a time when blacks faced repercussions as severe as death for registering to vote, Mound Bayou residents were casting ballots in every election. The city has a proud history of credit unions, insurance companies, a hospital, five newspapers, and a variety of businesses owned, operated, and patronized by black residents. Mound Bayou is a crowning achievement in the struggle for self-determination and economic empowerment."

"The occupation was always about values, it was about reconfiguring the relationship between people and profit so that people are privileged instead of profit. There's a natural affinity between those values and struggles over housing and land."

"You've got to be careful. You can become a professional hero. There's an awful sadness with that. You spend your life going from ceremony to ceremony. You have to move on. Life is a long-distance race. If too much of your life is centered on things you did early- there's a sadness. You can only stand up and hear what you did a few times. It's something you did at one time. There is also an embarrassment about the killing aspect. You don't want to be known for killing."

"Everyone has a breaking point. You have a reservoir, but it can dry up if you are in combat too long. If a person had been in combat too long, he deserved some special consideration."

"Anyone would have done what I did. Luck is important in life, but in combat it is crucial. The bravest things are often done with God the only witness."

"I can't talk very well but I want to say that this is the 'swellest' thing that ever happened to me. A heck of a lot sweller than getting the medal from the President."

"I hope we have laid the foundation of an institution which shall combine practical with liberal education, which shall fit the youth of our country for the professions, the farms, the mines, the manufactories, for the investigations of science, and for mastering all the practical questions of life with success and honor."

"I was darn lucky, and that's an understatement, but we should never forget, on this V-J Day, the boys who never came back and should receive the medals."

"Some people blame their misfortunes on it. It must be put in perspective. It is a purely personal thing. Your country does not owe you anything because you received this medal. After all, it was my [good] fortune that somebody wasn't shooting straight."

"I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."

"When things hang in the balance, it is the infantry that a country calls on. It falls on them to close with the enemy and decide the day... We lost some of our best people... They were often men who took the most chances and without whom you could never win a battle. They came from every walk of life- they represented the very best of my generation. You would have been proud to serve with them. As a platoon leader and company commander they sustained me then just as they sustain me now."

"The individual is better, society is better, and the state is better, for the culture of its citizens; therefore we desire to extend the means for the culture of all."

"Every man deserves a cause greater than himself... All of us here are privileged people, for we have been called to defend the most noble experiment the world has ever known- that man can but seek his destiny while living in freedom."