Ilan Stavans > Quotes

“Many historians emphasize the catastrophic breaks, ruptures, turning points, as the true stuff of history, but the field would be incomplete without a look into the continuities.”
― Ilan Stavans, What Is La Hispanidad?: A Conversation

“The irony is that people are surviving lockdown thanks to the arts. For centuries, the task of washing clothes has been made more bearable by singing.”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

“This pandemic seems to me not unlike my mother’s cancer: a threat, a warning, a reminder for society. Whether, like my mother, we ignore its import, is up to each one of”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

“We have recorded the sound the wind makes on Mars, but we cannot listen to one another.…”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

“The developed countries will struggle through the world economic crisis at the cost of huge sacrifices, but those of middling development—the rest of the world—will slide steeply into bottomless darkness.”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

“Latino history is like a river dividing the United States and Mexico. It is shared by several different cultures and called by many different names. In other words there isn't a single Latino history but many.”
― Ilan Stavans, Latino USA: A Cartoon History

“Language belongs, not to the academics, but those who use it,”
― Ilan Stavans

“To be racially mixed is to represent unity, to
synthesize, to integrate.”
― Ilan Stavans, The United States of Mestizo

“¿POR QUÉ ESCRIBE USTED? Porque mañana porque ayer porque hoy porque mañana porque sí porque no Porque el principio porque la bestia porque el fin porque la bomba porque el medio porque el jardín Porque góngora porque la tierra porque el sol porque san juan porque la luna porque rimbaud Porque el claro porque la sangre porque el papel porque la carne porque la tinta porque la piel Porque la noche porque me odio porque la luz porque el infierno porque el cielo porque tú Porque casi porque nada porque la sed porque el amor porque el grito porque no sé Porque la muerte porque apenas porque más porque algún día porque todos porque quizás”
― Ilan Stavans, Los mejores sonetos de la lengua castellana (Tierra Firme)

“It is said that in times of trouble, a Mexican Jewish joke is likely to arrive faster, and is more trustworthy, than the police.”
― Ilan Stavans, Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook

“Genghis Khan said the hand Is the first thing one man gives To another. Not in this war. A gesture of limited distance Now suffices, a nod, A minor smile or a hand Slightly raised, Not in search of its counterpart, Just a warning within The acknowledgment to stand back.”
― Ilan Stavans, And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

“Chipotle is like perfume.”
― Ilan Stavans, Sabor Judio: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook