Enchanted Air Quotes

“Books are enchanted. Books help me travel. Books help me breathe.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Books become my refuge. Reading keeps me hopeful. I fall in love with small poems, the shorter the better- haiku from Japan, and tiny rhymes by Emily Dickinson.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Is there any way that two people from faraway places can ever really understand each other's daydrems?”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Seventh grade. Eleven years old. A bookworm-misfit with long black braids, childish white socks, pointy pink glasses, and no courage for flirting. It's doesn't take long to learn that I'm ridiculous.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“The whole world's safety depends on the words of two men who are enemies.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“It's a sight I plan to remember, this spontaneous unity when faced with disaster.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Los libros están encantados. Los libros me ayudan a viajar. Los libros me ayudan a respirar.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Right wing or left wing, tyrants always try to control communication. They always fail.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Does the work of a girl always have to be so anonymous?”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Do I have to admit
that I'm half Cuban and half American,
or should I go even further, and explain
that Dad's parents were born in the Ukraine,
part of Soviet Russia?
Or am I just entirely American,
all the fractions left behind
by immigration from faraway nations?”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“At the steamy train station
in New Orleans, horrifying signs
above drinking fountains
announce:
COLORED.
WHITE.

Confused, I drink out of both.
Why should it matter if a stream
of coo, refreshing water
pours
into
my
mouth
or
another?”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

“Once I've mastered the art of pretending that I don't care what other kids think of me, I start to pay attention in class, discovering that I love library research for history term papers about ancient lands. It feels like a form of time travel.”
― Margarita Engle, Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings