Puerto Rican Quotes

I love all Puerto Rican food. I love rice and beans. I like anything with steak, chicken, pork. But I like chocolate and potato chips, too. I eat that when my wife goes away and isn't looking. ~ Jorge Posada

In my experience conservatives hate reporters mainly because they see us as phonies. We reject the idea that we belong to a class, or that we have our own tribal beliefs. Sometimes the hypocrisy is something they've seen - upper-class liberals, railing about racism in the heartland from the comfort of an all-white suburban town, where they occasionally tip a Puerto Rican gardener or hire a Republican plumber. But a lot of it has to do with approach and tone, the way we openly write for and celebrate professional-sect audiences, unlike the columnists of the past, the Mike Roykos or Jack Newfields, who were unembarrassed to write in the language of the working person. ~ Matt Taibbi

My mom's Puerto Rican. That's why I'm so lively and colorful. ~ Aubrey Plaza

There were a lot of kids from Puerto Rico at my high school in Florida; people always assumed I was Puerto Rican. Even now in California, I get talked to on the street in Spanish constantly! ~ Torrey DeVitto

Apparently all Puerto Rican moms were the same, even if they weren't your mom. ~ Daniel Jose Older

I'm a half-breed. You know, I'm Puerto Rican and Norwegian from descent, and I grew up, born and raised in New York City, and I stood out amongst my friends in my community. I was very blond-haired, white, and 'Lemonhead' was the name that they gave me. ~ Lemon Andersen

My mother's Puerto Rican and my father's Russian-Jewish, so we consider ourselves to be Jewricans or Puertojews. I think Puertojew sounds like a kosher bathroom, so I prefer Jewrican. ~ Rachel Ticotin

I don't understand this notion of ethnic pride. "Proud to be Irish," "Puerto Rican pride," "Black pride." It seems to me that pride should be reserved for accomplishments; things you attain or achieve, not things that happen to you by chance. Being Irish isn't a skill; it's genetic. You wouldn't say, "I'm proud to have brown hair," or "I'm proud to be short and stocky." So why the fuck should you say you're proud to be Irish? I'm Irish, but I'm not particularly proud of it. Just glad! Goddamn glad to be Irish! ~ George Carlin

Puerto Rican culture is very lively; very lively people; very warm people; and the food is really great. We're all about cooking a lot of food and having family around, we're kind of loud. It's that sort of vibe and it's great. ~ David Lambert

It is interesting that both Chicano and Puerto Rican art in the United States form an important part of the Civil Rights legacy and dialog. ~ Mari Carmen Ramirez

I'm your idol, the highest title, Numero Uno,
I'm not a Puerto Rican, but I'm speakin so that you know,
And understand, I got the gift of speech,
And it's a blessin, so listen to the lesson I preach ... ~ Special Ed

No wonder. Puerto Rican, Italian and Cuban –
the perfect ingredients for a hot, bossy, badass cocktail. ~ Kristen Ashley

In Texas, if your name is Carlos, you're a Mexican. In Florida, you're a Cuban. In New York, you're a Puerto Rican. And I come here and I find out I'm an Eskimo. ~ Carlos Mencia

Kami, do you have a weapon?"
"No, I do not have a fucking weapon!" Kami screamed over her shoulder. "Do you really think I'd risk going to jail for that Mexican whore?"
"Puerto Rican," Hawk muttered,rolling his eyes.
"Shut up, Gorbachev! ~ Madeline Sheehan

Being Puerto Rican, born and raised on the streets of New York, you go, 'Wow, you're still friends with your ex, man? Really? That's weird.' I don't play that. ~ Marc Anthony

I choose to be American, I choose to live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I choose to have Puerto Rican/Jewish neighbors, and I choose to maintain my Chinese identity. ~ Eddie Huang

After one hundred years of federal rule, the United States House of Representatives has moved to provide for the first meaningful route to self-determination for the Puerto Rican people under our federal system. ~ Dick Thornburgh

I'm half Puerto Rican and half Jewish and so, in some ways, living in many worlds at once is where I feel most at home. ~ Quiara Alegria Hudes

I think we have to really focus on the issues much more than we may have in the past. I think we have to seek to create coalitional strategies that go beyond racial lines. We need to bring black communities, Chicano communities, Puerto Rican communities, Asian American communities together. ~ Angela Davis

To be the first Puerto Rican to win a world title in four divisions would be an achievement. Gomez, Benitez, there have been a lot of good fighters from Puerto Rico before me. When I started boxing, Tito Trinidad was our big star. ~ Miguel Cotto

Only Puerto Rican girl on the earth who wouldn't give up the ass for any reason. I can't, she said. I can't make any mistakes ... Paloma was convinced that if she made any mistakes in the next two years, any mistakes at all, she would be stuck in that family of hers forever. That was her nightmare. Imagine if I don't get in anywhere, she said. You'd still have me, you tried to reassure her, but Paloma looked at you like the apocalypse would be preferable. ~ Junot Diaz

As I looked up to the stars, I began to cry. I thought the one star that was missing was the Puerto Rican star on the American flag. ~ Jose Andres

I'm half Puerto Rican. ~ Nick Woodman

You can't take no Chinese man and give him no Puerto Rican woman and talking like they're in love and emotionally in love and physically. ~ Muhammad Ali

Drugs in a disco are great for white people because it allows them to feel more Puerto Rican while dancing. ~ Dov Davidoff

The Porto Ricans at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors," the Harvard students wrote. One of the student signatures on the letter was by Pedro Albizu y Campos who would later become a Puerto Rican promoter of ideals for the island's independence from the United States. ~ Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent ~ Pedro Pietri

I like to make Arroz con Gandules, rice with pigeon peas. My husband loves it. It's a Puerto Rican dish my mother taught me. ~ Essence Atkins

I wanted to hug them all. We belonged to each other somehow...But that sweet feeling hung on and I loved all of Harlem gently and didn't want to be Puerto Rican or anything else but my own rusty self. ~ Louise Meriwether

So many people in this country have a dual loyalty. They have loyalty to America, but they also are determined to have their parade up Fifth Avenue once a year ... a Cuban parade or a Puerto Rican parade - many other countries. So they really don't forget. ~ Tom Wolfe

I grew up dancing salsa - you know, a traditional Puerto Rican dance. ~ Gina Rodriguez

I was in New York last Christmas - it's snowing; there's a guy in a t-shirt. I'm like, 'Dude, aren't you cold?' 'No, I'm from New York. I don't get cold.' Just 'cause you're from a cold place doesn't mean you're genetically predisposed to not feeling cold. You're not a penguin. I was like, 'In fact, sir, you're Puerto Rican, so if anything, you should be more cold. ~ Iliza Shlesinger

Mermaids weren't mammalian. They couldn't be. Too many sightings focused on their 'slender backs' and 'narrow waists'--features that seemed reasonable to modern readers with modern beauty standards, but which made no sense for an Italian fisherman during the plague years, or a Puerto Rican swimmer in the 1920s. If the mermaid had been an idealized projection of a human woman onto a marine mammal, she would have looked different every time, fat during some eras, thin during others, not consistently slim to the point of freezing in oceanic waters. The people who described mermaids were describing a real creature, something that wasn't mammalian, but looked mammalian enough to make a tempting lure. And why would anything lure sailors, if not as a form of sustenance? ~ Mira Grant

I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions. ~ Sonia Sotomayor

I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity. ~ Nolan Ryan

I am Puerto Rican. I think Latinas are sexy, and being one, it has influenced a lot of my style, but being an official Los Angelite, this town has influenced most of my daily style, which is relaxed & easy. ~ Nadine Velazquez

I love Calle 13 - they are Puerto Rican; some songs sound like Reggaeton, but it's not Reggaeton; it's good urban music. ~ Stephanie Sigman

I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent. ~ Philip Zimbardo

A black, a Puerto Rican and a Mexican are in a car. Who's driving? The police. ~ Muhammad Ali

What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun. ~ Sarah Vaughan

There was [ in New York] - some of it was this perception of the Midwest that I realized in this multicultural city that - and I don't think it's as true as it was - but everyone was kind of like, what, are you Jewish? Are you Italian? What are you? You know, are you black? Are you da-da-da? Are you Puerto Rican? And so I ended up - my ethnic identity was Midwestern, was white bread. And so it informed a lot of my stand-up. ~ Jim Gaffigan

I don't eat Puerto Rican food in L.A. because it's just too much, too addicting, but I know how to cook, so I can easily make it. I just choose not to because you never stop! I think my favorite would be pollo guisado con arroz blanco y habichuelas. I love tostones, I love maduros! I can eat rice and beans all day long! ~ Justina Machado

I like them brown, yellow, Puerto Rican, or Haitian
Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu nation ~ Phife Dawg

I'm half Puerto Rican and every Friday we have rice and beans and chicken in my house - so that's like a very Latin staple. It's just so comforting. I look forward to every single Friday because I just can't wait for my rice and beans and chicken. ~ Victoria Justice

I've been fighting for more than 24 years and as I continue my ascendant career I want to be true to myself. I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud, gay man. ~ Orlando Cruz

Most of the class was Black or Puerto Rican and we all loved music. But we hated music class with a passion. The teacher talked to us as though we were inferior savages, incapable of appreciating the finer things in life. She lectured about symphonies and concertos and sonatas and the like in a snooty voice. ~ Assata Shakur

I'm not an immigrant - I was born and raised in New York. My parents are Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S., for the people that don't know. So my whole life, I've identified as an American. There are times when I've gone to Puerto Rico, and there, I'm seen as the American cousin. ~ Elizabeth Rodriguez

I was like the only diverse kid in my high school, and I'm half-Puerto Rican. But yeah, I have a huge family and tons of cousins in Puerto Rico. We actually hung out with them last summer, and it was awesome. But I wish my grandfather had taught my dad Spanish when he was younger so he could've taught me when I was younger, and sometimes he does, too. It's a shame. ~ Aubrey Plaza

Baby names are a big debate in my family. Like true Colombian and Puerto Rican families, everybody and their mother is putting their two cents in - everything from Jose to Francisco to Victorio to Rain has been suggested. ~ Paula Garces

Peter Minuet, who said to the Indians in modern-day Manhattan, Will you accept a check from a Puerto Rican bank? Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

Back then, Lisa Lisa was somebody that I liked. She was Puerto Rican, and I related to her somewhat. I was a little bit of a fan. ~ Angie Martinez

I come from a pop background, but I'm also a Puerto Rican and I do feel this music. My approach to salsa is a humble one, and I defy anybody to prove that I'm faking it. ~ Marc Anthony

It's amazing to be a Puerto Rican fighter, we have a great history of fighters. I say this all the time, 'I'm Puerto Rican, raised in Philadelphia so I got the best of both worlds. I got the Puerto Rican power and the Philly toughness. It comes a long way. ~ Danny Garcia

Not only are Puerto Ricans citizens by birth, but one would be hard-pressed to find a Puerto Rican without a sister in New York or a son in Chicago, a cousin in Orlando or a daughter in Honolulu or Oklahoma City. ~ Luis A. Ferre

We have a pride of who we are as Latinos, regardless if we're Puerto Rican, Dominican, Venezuelan, and we're very proud of our customs and our history and our traditions and who we are. ~ Juan Luis Guerra

The rise of the antiwar and civil rights movements, along with the emergence of radical groups such as the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Army, the Puerto Rican independence movement, and the American Indian movement, saw a return to systematized abuse within the prison system. ~ Chris Hedges

I am much more wired to be an athlete than anything else. I understand the 'hard work = payoff' equation in sports. I run marathons and I box. And that's my Puerto Rican flag hanging in Freddie Roach's Wild Card Boxing gym. I gave it to him. My last N.Y.C. marathon time I ran in three hours flat. ~ Kirk Acevedo

My heart is half Puerto Rican, half Canadian. That is how I feel. ~ Roberto Alomar

We took dancehall and hip-hop and mixed it in the middle. I knew we had something. I thought, 'This sound is Puerto Rican sound.' ~ Daddy Yankee

[Author's Note:] When my grandmother came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1940s, she was a beautiful, glamorous woman from a wealthy family in the capital city, and the young bride of a dashing naval officer. She expected to be received as such. Instead, she found that people here had a very reductionist view of what it meant to be Puerto Rican, of what it meant to be Latinx. Everything about her confused her new neighbors: her skin tone, her hair, her accent, her notions. She wasn't what they expected a boricua to be.

My grandmother spent much of her adult life in the States but didn't always feel welcome here. She resented the perpetual gringo misconceptions about her. She never got past that resentment, and the echoes of her indignation still have some peculiar manifestations in my family today. One of the symptoms is me. Always raging against a perceived slight, always fighting against ignorance in mainstream ideas about ethnicity and culture. I'm acutely aware that the people coming to our southern border are not one faceless brown mass but singular individuals, with stories and backgrounds and reasons for coming that are unique. I feel this awareness in my spine, in my DNA.

So I hoped to present one of those unique personal stories - a work of fiction - as a way to honor the hundreds of thousands of stories we may never get to hear. And in so doing, I hope to create a pause where the reader may begin to individuate. When we see migrant ~ Jeanine Cummins

The farther away you writers stay, the better I like it. You know why? Because you're trying to create a bad image of me... you do it because I'm black and Puerto Rican, but I'm proud to be Puerto Rican. ~ Roberto Clemente

I know Spanish pretty well. I'm half-Puerto Rican - my mom is from Puerto Rico - so I have a lot of family there, and my mom's first language is Spanish. But growing up in the States, and with my dad being from the States, I'm kind of just like this white kid. ~ David Lambert

I want people to hear musicians like Joe Cuba. He has done things to whole masses of Puerto Rican people. The music is fantastic and important. ~ David Bowie

How come the Chinese can go where I can't go in America? Englishmen can come and set up a business in white America and do things I can't do.The Puerto Rican, Hawaiians, just about everybody can do more than black people and are more respected. ~ Muhammad Ali

I'd work to make it hip again to spend time in our fabled and fabulous land. But with a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother, I would probably be better suited as mayor of New York. ~ Geraldo Rivera

"Esa chica esta bien caliente." Hector laughed as Rider shook his head. Ainsley stiffened across from me. She was pretty fluent in Spanish and even though Hector was Puerto Rican, I had a feeling she was getting the general gist of whatever he was saying and she was not happy about it. "Me gustaria a llevarla a mi casa y comermela."
Ainsley cocked her head to the side as she brushed her long, blond hair over her shoulder. "Gracias! Pero no hay ni una parte de mi que tu te vas a comer."
Hector's eyes widened.
Rider threw his head back and burst into laughter. "Oh, shit. Priceless."
"What?" Ainsley blinked big eyes at the stunned Hector. "You think some white chick can't possibly understand another language so you're going to sit in front of me and talk about me like I'm not here?" Her smile was brittle and fake. "Bitch, please."
"Man..." Hector sat back, slowly shaking his head as he stared at her. "You're...brutal."
"Damn straight," she replied, her eyes like chips of blue ice. Whatever yumminess she'd seen in Hector was completely out the window now. "And you're a mal criado."
Hector's eyes narrowed.
"I really like your friend, Mouse." Still chuckling, Rider winked at me. "She basically called him a classless ass, and I agree. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I am half Puerto Rican, a quarter German and a quarter black. That was always a big issue for me - being mixed race - because casting directors tended to be very like, 'OK, are you Hispanic for this role?' 'Or is she going to be African American?' ~ Naya Rivera

Where are we going? We're going to try and fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King's dream, and if we Mexican Americans march to Washington, it is to tell this country that poverty is not a Negro problem. Poverty is a Mexican-American problem; poverty is an American-Indian problem; poverty is a Puerto Rican problem; poverty is an Appalachian problem. ~ Rodolfo Gonzalez Lebrero

Apparently tired of waiting for clear direction from Congress, the people of Puerto Rico have used the tools provided by their own local constitution to schedule a vote for Dec. 13 on the status of the island. ~ Dick Thornburgh

(scene: Rock and Vanessa are in a tree house in the Costa Rican jungle) "Placing 9mms inside a pot and securing the lid–capuchin monkeys sometimes snuck in and messed with his stuff, and the last thing he wanted was to accidentally plugged by some light-fingered primate–he turned back around to find Vanessa's head cocked, her lips pursed. ~ Julie Ann Walker

I'd say it's even harder to cater to Hispanics than to the lesbian or gay community. We're so culturally separated: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Venezuelans. We're all so different. ~ Carlos Ponce

Puerto Rico is an island separated by an ocean, a language, a culture. All of that put it in a position where it's like, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but what happened in Puerto Rico never happened at all. It's not like there was a decades-long conspiracy. It's just the aggregation of all these historical forces made it difficult for this information to exist in one place. ~ Nelson Antonio Denis

In Puerto Rico, we have a lot of traditions. We eat a very typical thing that's called 'pasteles' - it's almost like a tamale made of bananas, and we make it all together. Like, all the women of the family unite, and it's a very big deal, a very big thing. ~ Joyce Giraud

'Teen Beach Movie' was a lot of fun because we were in Puerto Rico on an island - you can't even call it work! ~ Ross Lynch

Each one of these decisions, even when they were ultimately reversed, set recovery efforts back further. Is this all a masterful conspiracy to make sure Puerto Ricans are too desperate, distracted, and despairing to resist Wall Street's bitter economic medicine? I don't believe it's anything that coordinated. Much of this is simply what happens when you bleed the public sphere for decades, laying off competent workers and neglecting basic maintenance. Run-of-the-mill corruption and cronyism are no doubt at work as well.

But it's also true that many governments have deployed a starve-then-sell strategy when it comes to public services: cut health care/transit/education to the bone until people are so disillusioned and desperate that they are willing to try anything, including selling off those services altogether. And if Rosselló and the Trump administration have seemed remarkably unconcerned about the nonstop relief and reconstruction screw-ups, the attitude may be at least partly informed by an understanding that the worse things get, the stronger the case for privatization becomes. ~ Naomi Klein

Elijah Muhammad teaches us the truth of God beautified the planet by separating everybody in different countries for themselves: Chinese in China, English in England, Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, Ethiopians in Ethiopia, Arabians in Arabia, Egyptians in Egypt, and Americans took that country and stole it away so there's always going to be trouble and chaos. ~ Muhammad Ali

Why can't we have racism that's ignorant but nice? You could have stereotypes that are positive about race. You could say, "Those Chinese people, they can fly!" "You know about the Puerto Ricans? They're made of candy!" ~ Louis C.K.

At the Tourist Bureau they talk about the cooling trade winds that caress the shores of Puerto Rico every day and night of the year - but Nelson Otto was a man the trade winds never seemed to touch. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The sun and the endless hours of swinging a machete in the fields had taken him from child to old man with no stage in between. ~ Judith Ortiz Cofer

Fifty thousand people in Mexico have been murdered. Puerto Penasco, 60 miles south of our border, just had five people and a police officer killed. That is like part of Arizona, and it is spilling over into our state. ~ Jan Brewer

Dear Sirs," Flick began before loudly inhaling, "On account of there being no heat down here in account of the being no electricity on account of the brand-new energy rations so thoughtfully and nobly and honorably imposed on the steerage decks by Sovereign Nicolaeus on account of the blackouts - Aster fell prey to a brief fit of hypothermia-induced delirium de spoke against you in her maddery. She's healed up now so you don't have to worry about it happening again. ~ Rivers Solomon

It is quite understandable that Puerto Ricans seek to preserve a cultural sense of identity without separating politically from U.S. national sovereignty. ~ Dick Thornburgh

All B.S. aside, it all comes down to ... we got to survive. I mean, even warriors put their spears down on Sundays. We got to survive here in this country ... 'cause I'm not going back to Africa. We got to survive here. And for us to survive here-White folks, Black folks, Korean folks, Mexican folks, Puerto Ricans-we got to understand each other. ~ Tupac Shakur

You Can't Change Your Life... Until You Change Your Heart, and You Can't Change Your Heart... Until You Change Your Mind! ~ Latif Mercado

I was very skinny and very lanky and kind of awkward. In Puerto Rico, everybody is a little more voluptuous, with these beautiful bodies, and there I was, the skinny, lanky girl. ~ Joyce Giraud

I am willing to bet that there are some Puerto Ricans who don't know about [their status]. ~ Sonia Sotomayor

I had such a great upbringing in Puerto Rico, and it was just a very normal life. ~ Roselyn Sanchez

Pageants were an amazing platform that gave a little girl like me from the mountains of my beautiful Puerto Rico a chance to travel, explore the world, meet amazing people, work for great charities and be a voice to empower women wherever I went. For all those things, I am grateful. ~ Joyce Giraud

I'm proud of who I am, and I'm proud I grew up in Puerto Rico. ~ Raul Labrador

Skill teachers are made scarce by the belief in the value of
licenses. Certification constitutes a form of market manipulation and is plausible only to a schooled mind.
Most teachers of arts and trades are less skillful, less inventive, and less communicative than the best craftsmen
and tradesmen. Most high-school teachers of Spanish or French do not speak the language as correctly as their
pupils might after half a year of competent drills. Experimentsconducted by Angel Quintero in Puerto Rico
suggest that many young teen-agers, if given the proper incentives, programs, and access to tools, are better than
most schoolteachers at introducing their peers to the scientific exploration of plants, stars, and matter, and to the
discovery of how and why a motor or a radio functions. ~ Ivan Illich

Puerto Rico was the Republic of Texas on jet-fuel testosterone and psychedelic estrogen. ~ David R. Martin

We were fighting for them in wars against people that we had more in common with than with the United States of Banana. ~ Giannina Braschi

Manhattan Community College had not one course on Peurto Rican history. The Peurto Rican sisters and brothers who knew what was happening became our teachers ... once you understand something about the history of a people, their heroes, their hardships, and their sacrifices, it's easier to struggle with them. To support their struggle. For a lot of peole in this country, people who live in other places have no faces. And this is the way the U.S. government wants it to be. They figure as long as the people have no faces and the country has no form, amerikans will not protest when they send in the marines to wipe them out. ~ Assata Shakur

Yet, individuals and corporations in Puerto Rico pay no federal income tax. ~ Dick Thornburgh

What do you think would have happened to me if a neighborhood of Puerto Ricans saw a scary-looking black dude trying to kick down the door of one of their fellow countrymen? ~ Charles Ramsey

Now that the there is a path for the people of Puerto Rico to express their self-determination on Puerto Rico's political status, there are some who seek to block that path. ~ Dick Thornburgh

On Saturday mornings I would walk to the Flavor Cup or Puerto Rico Importing coffee store to get my coffee. Often it was freshly roasted and the beans were still warm. Coffee was my nectar and my ambrosia: I was very careful about it. I decanted my beans into glass ... and I ground them in little batches in my grinder. ~ Laurie Colwin

When I married Wilnelia, one of the first things I wanted to know about Puerto Rico was the quality of the golf courses. ~ Bruce Forsyth

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898. ~ Noam Chomsky

My mother always gives the best advice. When I left Puerto Rico to pursue my dreams, she always supported me and said to me, 'I'm never going to cut your wings, so don't let anyone else do that to you.' That has been my philosophy through life. I want to share that valuable lesson with my little girl someday. ~ Roselyn Sanchez