Giannina Braschi Quotes

• '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...'
• '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.'
• 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.
• 
• Behind the word is silence. Behind that silence is forgetfulness.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• I have just turned life into a proverb. I just killed it.
• On the top floor of the Empire State a shepherd has stood up to sing and dance.
• 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.
• 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.

giannina braschi