In the Country We Love Quotes

“We don't do all our growing up between birth and adolescence or even our twenties. If we're fortunate, we never stop.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“My work on Orange has taught me this: Human beings are not categorically bad because of their mistakes. They can learn from their errors and get back on track. No one should be forever written off because of one part of his or her history.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Our passions don't just compel us; they can also heal us.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Truth is, among low-wage earners busting their tails to make the rent, one’s feelings are seldom discussed or acknowledged. Emotional wellness is a First World luxury.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“The day you finally start dealing with your past is the day you stop dragging it into the present.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“You've gotta be careful who you share your big dreams with. People often piss on them. Some will even talk you out of your aspirations, mostly because they've given up on their own.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Just as one moment can bring despair, it can also lead to a new beginning. A different life. A dream for moving onward and upward rather than backward.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“That was one thing I could be sure of, that my mother loved me. Fuck anyone who tried to come between us.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Even in the best of times, life is a mixed bag of disappointments and triumphs, heartaches and highs. Life hands out all of the above, and we don't get to pick how many of each we'll get, or in what order they'll show up. But we do get to choose how we'll walk through our days. Whether we'll cower under our covers ever morning, or rise up to take on the challenges.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“In some ways, the heartache we feel for our loved ones is deeper, rawer, than any we could feel for ourselves.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“I am an intelligent woman. I am a good person and a loving daughter. I matter, and what I have to offer also matters. I can forgive myself for whatever I did yesterday, because today is a new day.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“For the thousands of nameless children who feel as forgotten as I did—this memoir is my gift to you. It’s as much for your healing as it is for my own.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“The worst thing I could’ve done would have been to deny myself the opportunity because of fear or feeling like I didn’t deserve it.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Some people shy away from boldly claiming what they most wish for. Maybe they fear it'll make them look pushy. Or greedy. Or ungrateful for what they have. But when you keep your dreams hidden away, when you hide them under a sofa cushion, they never get the light they need to grow”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“With a heart still burdened from a level of loss and grief I'd wish upon no one, Mami mustered the courage, with Eric on her hip, to set out for a foreign land. A nation where she didn't speak the language. A country that provided a haven from the poverty and violence and despair she was desperate to flee. Along the way, she fell down, got up, and then toppled to her knees again. But in the end, she always got up. She crawled back to her feet. She stood. And she deserved not my contempt but my deepest admiration.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“The worst thing I could’ve done would have been to deny myself the opportunity because of fear or feeling like I didn’t deserve it. It was one of those times when I really saw the power of having a dream and making it come true, no matter the obstacles.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old. They grow old because they stop pursuing dreams. —GABRIEL “GABITO” GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, Colombian novelist and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Your failures don’t define you,” she continued. “Your worth isn’t about what you do or don’t do. You have value simply because you’re here.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“I’d never been to Colombia. Yet in a way, I felt like I’d gone a dozen times. That’s because my parents kept Eric and me connected to their homeland. They played the music, prepared the foods, told us stories from their childhoods.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Service to others- I believe that's the purpose every person on the planet shares.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“The day you finally start dealing with your past is the day you stop dragging it into the present. I’m still dealing. I’m still facing the hard stuff. I’m still getting better and growing up. In J, I’ve found a man who’s willing to take that long road with me. *”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Emotional wellness is a First World luxury.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“With just about every script, in almost every corner of the set, I was faced with the truth: This was my parents' life. My mother had sat in handcuffs; my father had once worn an orange jumpsuit like the dozens that sat folded in our wardrobe department. For the other actors and me on our show, this was all fantasy, the re-creation of a world we knew little about; for Mami and Papi, it could not have been any more real or painful...I've had so many scenes in which Flaca & I are doing the dirty work, like cleaning the kitchen or mopping the floors, which is when I think of my parents most. Long before they ended up in prison, they'd spent years handling the nastiest jobs, the ones often avoided by others. Manual labor. Low pay. No respect. They must've felt so trapped. It must've been so hard for them to maintain their dignity when others looked down on them or, worse, didn't see them at all.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“You’ve gotta be careful who you share your big dreams with. People often piss on them. Some will even talk you out of your aspirations, mostly because they’ve given up on their own.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“There, in the most ordinary of days, the greatest joys of my childhood resided. Supper on the stove. Music in the air. Love all around. My wonder years.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“I've written the book I wish I could've read when I was that girl- and my hope is that, in these pages, others will find the solace I once ached for.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it another way: “Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service... You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“I daydream about reclaiming some of those moments by sharing the simplest things with her. What would it be like for us to go to HomeGoods and pick out a mirror or a little chair? How would it feel to be able to say, "Hey Mami- how would this look in the living room?" Those are the little things I miss...”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“They aren't little things at all. They're the experiences that, one moment at a time, make up a life.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided

“By some estimates, you and I will cross paths with as many as eighty thousand people during our lifetimes. Many of the folks we’ll encounter will be passing acquaintances. Others will be family, friends, and coworkers who remain in our lives for decades. If even one of those people has a lasting impact on us, we’re fortunate.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided