Diane Guerrero Quotes

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.

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.

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.

The day you finally start dealing with your past is the day you stop dragging it into the present.

Our passions don't just compel us; they can also heal us.

I had dreams, but always told myself, 'Nah, that would never happen.' For a poor Latina, (acting) wasn't a reality.

Emotional wellness is a First World luxury.

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.

That was one thing I could be sure of, that my mother loved me. Fuck anyone who tried to come between us.

I feel like you can't really be truthful as an artist and empathize with the human experience, unless you know your truth and you're not living a lie. So I'm learning through it, and it's making me a better person, and it's making me a better artist, I think.

Service to others- I believe that's the purpose every person on the planet shares.