Matt De La Pena Quotes

We only reveal what we want other people to know, right? It's like we create fictional characters for the public. And inside we're somebody totally different.

This is me putting it simply; the politicians are one demographic and they see that Arizona is changing. I feel like the only instinct to retain power is to have education favor you. You have this Mexican American program that helps kids take ownership of their race and their power. It threatens the political powers that are in place.

But not just alive like I was yesterday and the day before. Alive like I knew I was alive. Like I could feel the breaths coming into my chest. And I knew I was the person inside my own body.

To me, if the writing doesn't have rhythm, it feels dead. I lose all confidence. The music has to emerge to feel confident enough to move on to the next major chapter.

Some people watch the world with their ears.

In all of my books, I really want to work with working-class people. My goal is to show the moments of grace and dignity in their lives.

As his mind continues to drift away from his body, he had one final realization. The world itself was alive, too. It swirled around you and sped past your eyes and ears, so fast you could never see it, but slow at the same time, like a tree growing taller in a park. And all the sounds you hears-the wind whipping past your ears and the ocean's whispering and the tickle of the whitecaps against your boat-that was earth's blood pumping through imperceptible veins, and some of those veins were nothing more than people like Shy or Carmen, or Addie.

When I was young, I grew up in a family of working-class people. Not just my parents, but my extended family, as well.

He wondered how his nana always found beautiful where he never even thought to look.

And all the sounds you heard- the wind whipping past your ears and the ocean's whispering and the trickle of whitecaps against your boat- that was the earth's blood pumping through imperceptible veins, and some of those veins were nothing more than people like Shy or Carmen or Addie.
And when the end came it smelled like morning dew and brine and everything around you morphed into a man, and that man shined a flashlight in your eyes and kneeled down beside you to pet your hair and he said: You're gonna be okay, young fella. Now come on.
And when he lifted you into his arms and carried you like a child into a hidden cave, where you would grow back into the earth's rich soil from which you came and where you would forever belong.

Once I start writing, I am a huge reviser. To me writing is revising. I probably turn over every sentence that I write, to see if I have the rhythm right. That's why my first drafts take a really long time.

Even though I was a reluctant reader in junior high and high school, I found myself writing poems in the back of class.

He stared at the glowing moon again, and he listened to the whispering ocean. His thoughts were more staticky than before, but for the first time since the summer started, he felt like he understood the ocean's whispering. It all came down to this. The darkness. The loneliness. The mystery. The fact that everyone's days were numbered, and it didn't matter if you were in premier class or worked in housekeeping. Those were only costumes people wore. And once you stripped them away you saw the truth. This giant ocean and this dark pressing sky. We only have a few minutes, but the unexplainable world is constant and forever marching forward.

I've always wanted to write about the other side of the tracks, the have-nots, maybe because that's who I was.

Being the first to go to college in my family was a great thing, but it was also a source of guilt. I felt like almost a sellout going to college.

All Sera could do was shake her head. "Please understand, Dak. The only reason the older me is walking so close to the older you is because there's not a whole lot else to choose from."
"Whatever you say," Dak told her. "Come here, let's hook our arms together and see if it's a good fit."
"Gross," Sera said. "I'd rather make out with my dog.

I only know what it's like to be an author with social media. I can't compare. I do think we lose the mystery of the author. Today, I get tons of e-mails and Facebook messages from readers, and my goal with Twitter and Facebook is, if someone reaches out to me, I'm going to respond to them. I don't want to be an elitist author who is untouchable. I'm just a regular person, too. I will always respond to everybody.

When it comes to attractive females my policy has always been to nod first and ask questions later.

The ocean talks to you. Especially at night. Whispering voices that never let up, not even when you sleep.

Nana, how come we don't got a car?' 'Boy, what do we need a car for? We got a bus that breathes fire, and old Mr. Daniels, who always has a trick for you.

I stayed there on the floor like that for a long, long time.
Eating and crying.
Crying and eating.

When I was in school, I was very much into just sports, mostly basketball, and didn't really see myself as much of a student. But once I got into college, I figured I wasn't going to be play beyond college. I started to think what was I going to do, since I wouldn't be able to make a living with basketball. There were a couple of things I liked to do. I wrote poetry, spoken word mostly.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't read a novel all the way through until after high school. Blasphemy, I know. I'm an author now. Books and words are my world.

It's not stuff you leave with. It's love.

Truth is not a fixed thing. It evolves and morphs and inverts. What is true today may not be true tomorrow.

And sometimes when her light brown eyes locked on to my dark brown ones, it was like she was reaching a hand all the way into my chest, like she was digging around in there for the most honest thing she could find.

Stars shine long after they've flamed out and the shine they shine with is love.

The feeling it gave me was an odd combination of weightless self-pity and excitement. I understood my life was meaningless, and this knowledge freed me up to accomplish absolutely anything.

My fear is you have to be careful as a writer to not get caught up in social media and blogging, because it can start to feed into your writing time. When you are writing a book, it's such a long journey where the payoff is way at the end, sometimes years away. The payoff of the blog post is today. You get the reinforcement, comments or "likes" immediately. It's appealing. You have to be patient with the book.

I was really drawn to spoken-word style poetry. I loved the rhythms, and for some reason, I was just drawn to this poetry as a way of expressing my feelings, because I didn't have any other outlet.

People always think there's this huge hundred-foot-high barrier that separates doing good from doing bad. But there's not. There's nothing. There's not even a little anthill. You just take one baby step in any direction and you're already there. You've doing something awful. And your life is changed forever.

My chest got this weird feeling, like when you stare into the eyes of a little baby and the baby looks back up at you and you can feel how pure and innocent it is, so much that it makes your stomach feel empty - probably 'cause you realize you used to be pure like that, too, and now you're not.

A surprising number of teens I meet in rougher schools around the country find refuge in novels and creative writing. It's not always the usual suspects either, the high achievers.

That's the weirdest thing, by the way. That every person you come across lays down in a bed, under the covers, and closes their eyes at night. Cops, teachers, parents, hot girls, pro ballers, everybody. For some reason it makes people seem so much less real when I look at them.

Once I got into college, I discovered literature - in particular, multicultural literature. I just started to understand the power of story and narrative, and you know, like anyone else, I kind of wanted to do it, too.

I guess I don't really know what I want to do, either. Sometimes I feel like a shook-up bottle of soda. Like, I have all this passion that wants to explode, but I don't know where to aim it yet.

Sometimes when you're surrounded by dirt ... you're a better witness for what's beautiful.

Cormac McCarthy is my favorite author in the world. I love him so much. There's one book that informs me more than The Road - it's called Suttree. That book is a huge influence on me. I'm not smart enough to emulate him, but he inspires me. He never infiltrates my writing directly. He writes incredibly intelligently about people that are marginalized.