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

“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