Erika L. Sánchez > Quotes

“I don’t know why I’ve always been like this, why the smallest things make me ache inside. There’s a poem I read once, titled “The World Is Too Much with Us,” and I guess that is the best way to describe the feeling—the world is too much with me.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“It’s easier to be pissed, though. If I stop being angry, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart until I’m just a warm mound of flesh on the floor.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Happiness is a dandelion wisp floating through the air that I can’t catch. No matter how hard I try, no matter how fast I run, I just can’t reach it. Even when I think I grasp it, I open my hand and it’s empty.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I was too excited and threw my book across the room. It was so good that it made me angry. People would think I’m nuts if I try to explain it to them, so I don’t.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I’d rather live in the streets than be a submissive Mexican wife who spends all day cooking and cleaning.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Be careful. Please. The border…The fucking border.” I feel a wildness spreading through me. “It’s nothing but a giant wound, a big gash between the two countries. Why does it have to be like that? I don’t understand. It’s just some random, stupid line. How can anyone tell people where they can and can’t go?”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Can I miss people I’ve never met? Because I think I do.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I don’t understand why everyone just complains about who I am. What am I supposed to do? Say I’m sorry? I’m sorry I can’t be normal? I’m sorry I’m such a bad daughter? I’m sorry I hate the life that I have to live?”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“In some ways, I think that part of what of what I'm trying to accomplish, whether Amá really understands it or not, is to live for her Apá, and Olga. It's not that I'm living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they've never had. And I feel like I can do so much with what I've been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull mediocre life.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I don’t know why it surprises me that the world doesn’t stop just because I’m gone.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I love the smell of old bookstores—paper, knowledge, and probably mildew.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Mexican nicknames are as cruel as they are hilarious.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“As much as I get sick of eating Mexican food every single day of my life, if heaven existed, I know it would smell like fried tortillas.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“There is no heaven. There is only earth, sky, and the transfer of energy. The idea would almost be beautiful if it weren't such a nightmare.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“It’s his dream to live in the U.S., but I almost wish he won’t. Even if he makes it alive, this place is not the promised land for everyone.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“All I do is fuck up. No one cares about who I really am.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“But how do we live with these secrets locked within us? How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Maybe you’re too young to understand, Julia, but sometimes people don’t need the truth.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“If—when—I become rich, I want a library so big that I’ll need a ladder to reach all my books. I want first editions, too. I want ancient tomes that I have to handle with forceps and rubber gloves.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“One of the things I hate most in life is people telling me to calm down, as if I’m some out-of-control lunatic who isn’t entitled to have feelings.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“sometimes in life you don’t get to do what you want to do. Sometimes you have to deal with what’s given to you, shut up, and keep working. That’s it.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Como me gusta la mala vida. Fuck.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I wonder what it’s like to clean houses all day and then come home and keep cleaning. I hate seeing her this way because it makes me feel so guilty—guilty for existing, guilty that she has to work like that for us.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“I’ve read The Awakening a million times, but I find it comforting. My favorite character is the lady in black who follows Edna and Robert everywhere. I also love the book because I’m so much like Edna—nothing satisfies me, nothing makes me happy. I want too much out of life. I want to take it in my hands and squeeze and twist as much as I can from it. And it’s never enough.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“If there’s any place on earth where people should be allowed to cry as they watch their lives transform before them, it’s the airport. In a way, it’s kind of like purgatory, isn’t it? An in-between place.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“Everything changes, for better or worse, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it's beautiful, and sometimes it fills us with terror. Sometimes both.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“But I know I have to go far away. I love my parents, of course, and I feel guilty for wanting to leave them, but living here would be too hard. I need to grow and explore, and they won’t let me. I feel like I’m being kept under a magnifying glass.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“You shouldn’t hate yourself so much. Everyone is messed up, even when it doesn’t seem like it.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

“In some ways, I think that part of what I’m trying to accomplish—whether Amá really understands it or not—is to live for her, Apá, and Olga. It’s not that I’m living life for them, exactly, but I have so many choices they’ve never had, and I feel like I can do so much with what I’ve been given. What a waste their journey would be if I just settled for a dull, mediocre life. Maybe one day they’ll realize that.”
― Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter