Margarita Engle

“My heart drums with gratitude.My thoughts singwith hope.”

“My mind soarsand whirlsin a danceof wild fearand graceful hope.”

“I don't understand the whole thrilling verse, but I love the way poetry turns ordinary words into winged things that rise up and soar!”

“Danger is a chain...passed from one wounded child to the next. We must stop the danger by breaking the chain. We must learn how to stay safe and be kind.”

“No matter how invisibleI feel, I will always be wrappedin the memoryof life as a captive.—Quebrado”

“I still think of myselfas a broken place, a drifting islewith no home.—Quebrado”

“I have spent all my years accepting sad truths.—Quebrado”

“If we knew how to find the lost, we would know how to rediscover the parts of our mindsleft behindin battle.”

“The old life is gone, my days are new,but time is still a mysteryof wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance. " —Rosa”

“The Little War?How can there bea little war?Are some deathssmaller than others,leaving motherswho weepa little less?”

“If only the peace I feel right nowcould be stored up and released laterwhen cruelty surrounds mein the darkduring nightmares.”

“I will never understand the whole worldor evenone country.All I can dois try to understandthe truth and liesin the simplest choicesI faceevery day.”

“I feel the heaviness of nightmareseven though I am awake.How weary I am, how sleeplessand hopeless—there is no escapefrom the tormentof wishes.”

“How can people stay sane in a world that makes no sense?”

“Like King Midas, I am left with nothingbut this unreasonable hopethat, somehow, my strange lifeand my lost familywill returnto normal. ”

“I feel like...the boy lost somewherebetween the torment of memoryand a few fragile shardsof hope.”

“Joy and truth both have a wayof peeking through any dark curtain.”

“That is how I think of peace and peace of mind—as timid birds that we have to search for, not bold ones that come looking for us.”