29 Giannina Braschi Quotes

Giannina Braschi quotes

1. 'It's the end of the world. I was excited by the whole situation. Well, if everybody is going to die, die hard, shit, but what do I know? Is this an atomic bomb--the end of the world--the end of the millennium? No more fear of being fired--for typos or tardiness--digressions or recessions--and what a way of being fired--bursting into flames--without two weeks notice--and without six months of unemployment--and without sick leave, vacation, or comp time--without a word of what was to come--on a glorious morning--when nature ran indifferent to the course of man--there came a point when that sunny sky turned into a hellhole of a night-with papers, computers, windows, bricks, bodies falling, and people running and screaming...'

2. 'I saw a torso falling--no legs--no head--just a torso. I am redundant because I can't believe what I saw. I saw a torso falling--no legs--no head--just a torso--tumbling in the air--dressed in a bright white shirt--the shirt of the businessman--tucked in--neatly--under the belt--snugly fastened--holding up his pants that had no legs. He had hit a steel girder--and he was dead--dead for a ducat, dead--on the floor of Krispy Kreme--with powdered donuts for a head--fresh out of the oven--crispy and round--hot and tasty--and this businessman--on the ground was clutching a briefcase in his hand--and on his finger, the wedding band. I suppose he thought his briefcase was his life--or his wife--or that both were one--because the briefcase was as tight in hand as the wedding band.'

3. Detras de la palabra esta el silencio. Detras de lo que suena esta la puerta. En cada cosa hay un enves y un pliegue que se oculta. Y lo que se acercaba se cayo y se detuvo lejos en la cercania. Una expresion se duerme y se levanta. Y lo que estaba alla regresa. Es una forma de volver el mundo a su lugar. Y algo vuelve cuando debiera quedarse recordando. Pero si toco el timbre el agua salta y el rio vuelve a caer del agua y el cuerpo se levanta y vibra. Y la piedra se despierta y dice canto. Y la mano se transforma en un panuelo. Y companeros son el crepusculo y el viento. Y ese crepusculo aparece en medio de un relampago. Fuera hay un pajaro y un arbol y una rama y aquel relampago. Y sobre todo hay mediodia sin forma. Y de repente todo adquiere movimiento. Dos viajeros se encuentran y sus zapatos bailan. Y chocan la brisa y la manana. Y corre la gaviota y el conejo vuela. Y corre y corre y corria la corriente. Detras de eso que corre esta la vida. Detras de ese silencio esta la puerta.

4. Behind the word is silence. Behind that silence is forgetfulness.

5. The day jumped today. I'm upside down, it said to me, and I answered, help me take the ceiling down and put it in the street. Then bring the ladder over here and lay it on the floor. If this is how the world is, I said to myself, let it stay this way. But then the phone rang, the alarm rang, the clocks all rang, and everything escaped.

6. Me abastecieron los tanques de gasolina y las guerras. Fui soldado de plomo. Marche sobre el humo de la ciudad. Hubo momentos dificiles y hubo: ?Hola! ?Como estas? Valieron todos lo mismo. Tenia los dos peniques. Pude entrar a la ciudad. Y me cerraron las puertas. Les cerre el alma. No supieron que paso. ?Paso por aqui mi alma? Cuerpo, te dije, ?como estas? Yo he sido soldado de plomo. La voz que lo dijo no fue lo que dijo. Casi lo juro por el camino. Pero el trayecto, la marcha cargada de barro, los ojos de asfalto, las manos de cal, las piernas de taladro, los ombligos de cemento, resonaron, resonaron, resonaron--los yunques del martillo contra las vigas del cuerpo-- taladrando, taladrando, taladrandome. Marchando al compas, la pared y el cerrojo, el corazon, mi alma, el precipicio de los camiones. Y todo era negro, negro, negro, blanco--como el asfalto. Y el mundo cerro sus puertas--yunques y martillos contra los hombres dormidos--las puertas del corazon, ciudades en todas partes y soldaditos de plomo.

7. I have been a fortune teller. Ages ago I told the forture on buffoons and madmen. You remember. I had a small voice like a grain of sand and enormous hands. Madmen walked over my hands. I told them the truth. I could never lie to them. And now I am sorry.

8. I have just turned life into a proverb. I just killed it.

9. On the top floor of the Empire State a shepherd has stood up to sing and dance.

10. Boom! Boom! He's dead. He's dead. Mariquita has killed the Narrator. Revolution in the Intimate Diary of Solitude. He's dead. He's dead. But he's not really dead. He has just told me that he doesn't like agressive women like me. He has just told me that there is too much resentment in my words. And he has just told me that I said, 'Boom! Boom!' and I didn't kill anyone. After all, I'm not a feminist. I don't have to be a feminist to call myself Mariquita Samper. I'm sustained by my name and my person. I'm an egg and nothing more.

11. If I respected languages like you do, I wouldn't write at all. El muro de Berlin fue derribado. Why can't I do the same? Desde la torre de Babel, las lenguas han sido siempre una forma de divorciarnos del resto de la humanidad. Poetry must find ways of breaking distance. I'm not reducing my audience. On the contrary, I'm going to have a bigger audience with the common markets--in Europe--in America. And besides, all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds. I feel like Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, and I even feel like Garcilaso forging a new language. Saludo al nuevo siglo, el siglo del nuevo lenguaje de America, y le digo adios a la retorica separatista y a los atavismos.

1. Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.

2. Questions don't change the truth. But they give it motion.

3. Nativity is the enemy of prophecy.

4. I love hiccups and I love sneezes and I love blinks and I love belches and I love gluttons. I love hair. I love bears. For me, the round. For me, the world.

5. What is liberty? The measure of dignity.

6. If you want to know what love is, have a child. If you want to know what pain is, bury him.

7. A baby is expected. A trip is expected. News is expected. Forgetfulness is expected. An invitation is expected. Hope is expected. But memories are not expected. They just come.

8. It's true that things are beautiful when they work. Art is function.

9. Only what is fated to die is capable of living. Only what dies lives.

10. I have nothing against the smell of rot but something against what hides the smell of rot in the United States of America.

11. Marketers keep inventing desires, necessities for you and for me. I need this. I need that. I need. I need. It's the need of a smoking fit. If you don't smoke that cigarette now, you'll die - when in reality you die because you succumb to the rage and rattle of the needy greed that keeps you busy needing more and more things. Is this the American Dream - the greedy need?

12. Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy.

13. Ambulances always come with clouds of smoke. And then they disappear in a whistle. But what they bring is fear. Not freedom. Feardom is what they bring. And they bring fire and smoke. Oh, my nerves are bad tonight, yes, bad. I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.

14. “When you create a genre—which is not a movement—because it has no past—and if it has a past—its past is pregnant with a future bigger than its past—its past is its post-creation—only a point of departure—it created modes of thinking. A genre has in itself movements, generations—and after all these concepts expire in time—the genre—that is an artifact—that is a fact made shift—it doesn’t belong to a date—it is not dated—it includes all the expirations that expire in its belly—and it is still pregnant with new beginnings.”

15. “A month doesn’t produce what a day can give. A nanosecond can be more productive than all the technology of an hour.”

16. “On Make America Great Again: The agenda of a dead body coming back to life. Whenever you have the past (what is dead) presenting itself as an agenda to fix the present moment by taking us back—to the dead—you have contagion, pest, collusion, pollution, delusion—not illusion. Illusion is a hope. Delusion is a past illusion presenting itself as hope. Hope is something that has not happened yet, but when it happens, and the happening has already died and been buried—and other present moments have come forward and made us live other present moments—and a dead body—a dead moment—comes back presenting itself as if it were alive—and it is dead—and it doesn’t tell us that it is dead—that is not an illusion—that is a delusion.”

17. “The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading--northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them how to bankrupt creativity.”

18. “Zarathustra: Do you have words? Do your words belong to you? Giannina: No, my answer is no. I have no property in the dictionary. Words are anonymous like the disenfranchised masses that haven't been weighed - or named - or framed. My words belong to those who don't belong.”