Ana Castillo > Quotes

“I ask the impossible: love me forever.
Love me when all desire is gone.
Love me with the single mindedness of a monk.
When the world in its entirety,
and all that you hold sacred advise you
against it: love me still more.
When rage fills you and has no name: love me.
When each step from your door to our job tires you--
love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me.
Love me when you're bored--
when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,
or more pathetic, love me as you always have:
not as admirer or judge, but with
the compassion you save for yourself
in your solitude.
Love me as you relish your loneliness,
the anticipation of your death,
mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.
Love me as your most treasured childhood memory--
and if there is none to recall--
imagine one, place me there with you.
Love me withered as you loved me new.
Love me as if I were forever--
and I, will make the impossible
a simple act,
by loving you, loving you as I do”
― Ana Castillo, I Ask the Impossible: Poems

“There’s something insupportable about being pissed with the one person on this planet that sends your adrenaline flowing to remind you that you’re alive. It’s almost like we’re mad because we’ve been shocked out of our usual comatose state of being by feeling something for someone, for ourselves, for just a moment.”
― Ana Castillo, Loverboys: Stories

“What you perceive as "liberal" is my independence to choose what i do, with whom, and when. Moreover, it also means that i may choose not to do it, with anyone, ever.”
― Ana Castillo

“Catch me, as if I have surely been out committing a violation against you, my sin of insisting on existing without you. ”
― Ana Castillo, Loverboys: Stories

“A good lover will do that, see something worthwhile in you that you never knew was there. And when there's something you don't like to see in yourself a good lover won't see it either.”
― Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion: A Novel

“Women Are Not Roses

Women have no
beginning
only continual
flows.

Though rivers flow
women are not
rivers.

Women are not
roses
they are not oceans
or stars.

i would like to tell
her this but
i think she
already knows.”
― Ana Castillo, Women Are Not Roses

“When our mother is seen only as the one-dimensional Mary of modern times, instead of the great dual force of life and death, She is relegated to the same second-class status of most women in the world. She is without desires of Her own, selfless and sexless except for Her womb. She is the cook, the mistress, bearer and caretaker of children and men. Men call upon Her and carry Her love and magic to form a formidable fortress, a team of cannons to protect them against their enemies. But for a long, long time the wars that women have been left to wage on behalf of men, on behalf of the human race, have started much sooner, in the home, in front of the hearth, in the womb. We do what we must to protect and provide for our young our families, our tribes”
― Ana Castillo, Goddess of the Americas

“The man you love cooking for you is good for you too.”
― Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion: A Novel

“To all the women and the men who ever loved me just a little.”
― Ana Castillo, Loverboys: Stories

“Between the sun and poverty there was us for a little while.”
― Ana Castillo, Loverboys: Stories

“something about giving himself over to a woman was worse than having lunch with the devil...”
― Ana Castillo, So Far from God

“Once innocence--an all too-brief state of being, if such a one exists--encounters experience, it is transformed. If that transformation is understood, it becomes knowledge. And if that knowledge is employed, then it becomes wisdom.”
― Ana Castillo, Loverboys: Stories

“Poverty has its advantages. When you're that poor what would you have that anyone would want?
Except your peace of mind. Your dignity. Your heart.
The important things.”
― Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion: A Novel

“You say your city the way some Americans say this is their country. You never feel right saying that - my country. For some reason looking Mexican means you can't be American.”
― Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion: A Novel