Victor Villaseñor: Doing

Victor Villaseñor is American writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Victor Villaseñor: 178   quotes 1   like

“Dog, cats, horses, all animals could do this at will much easier than us humans, Rosa and her husband Emilio, had explained to me, because animals were much closer to God than we humans were.”

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

God , Dogs , Cats , Animals

““Marina,” I said, “I don’t know how to explain this, but … well, everything I say or do or even think just doesn’t seem to work out for me. Except when I’m totally alone.” I almost added, “Totally alone with God,” but I didn’t because I knew how crazyloco this might sound, especially since I wasn’t a priest or a monk.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

God , Thinking

“Yes,” he said. “You see, I, too, have been seeing a lot of things, now that I’ve been spending so much time at the hospital.” He took a deep breath. “One night I got up and went down the hallway to see this woman who was crying. She was an elderly woman and the doctors didn’t know what to do for her. She was dying. I held her hand and stroked her forehead like she was a child. She immediately calmed down and was able to pass over in her sleep so peacefully. “The night nurse was furious, and the next morning she told the doctors what I’d done. They, too, became upset, telling me I didn’t have the authority to visit other patients. That poor nurse and the doctors, they just weren’t prepared to accept the simple truth that they aren’t in control. No one is in control, Mundo. We’re all just God’s guests for a short time.” I don’t know why, but I now asked, “Joseph, are you dying?”

Victor Villaseñor

He looked at me straight in the eyes. “Yes, Mundo,” he said, “I’m dying.”
Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

God , Truth , Sleep , Time

“My grandmother—God bless her soul—a Yaqui Indian from northern Mexico, was the greatest teacher I’d ever had! And do you know what she taught me, she taught me that each and every day is un milagro given to us by God, and that work, that planting corn and squash with our two hands is holy. She taught me all this with kindness and invitation. Not with ridicule and looking down her nose at me and making me feel like less than human when I didn’t get it at first.”

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

God , Feeling , Soul , Teachers

“Because the most important thing any man can do in all his life is pick the right woman to breed with—I mean, marry first, then breed, because from the woman comes the—” “—comes the instinct to survive,” I said, having heard this for as long as I could remember. “Good,” said mi papa,”

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Life

“Papá,” I said, “on our first day of school, they screamed at us, ‘No Spanish! English only!’ Then they slapped Ramón in the face until he was all bloody because he wouldn’t stop talking Spanish. And all he was saying was ‘Don’t yell at me, you’re not my mother,’ and ‘Don’t be grabbing me! You have no right to do this.’ He was so smart, papá, and so brave and noble, and they kept slapping him, again and again, until his whole face was a bloody mess.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School

“Suddenly, I don’t know how to explain it, the chess pieces seemed to come alive for me. It was like I could now see the chess pieces moving on the board on their own. I started beating everybody. I, the slowest of the slow, had now gone something like a hundred games without losing. I could do no wrong. It was magical how the pieces spoke to me, showing me where to move.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Game

“Eve,” I said, “please stop for a minute. I think I finally get it. As you read to me aloud, the words become alive for me, and I can see pictures in my head. But when I try to read, all those little letters just confuse me. Because it’s the white of the page between the words that truly grab me. Do I make any sense? Reading, I do believe, is a very unnatural thing. But to listen to a story, like sitting around a campfire, is very natural.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Nature , Thinking , Sense , Reading

“I began to realize that my parents were going to build the biggest damn house in the whole town! I was shocked! “Are we rich?” I asked my brother. “Yes,” he said. “We are? Then why do I always wear dirty, old work clothes?” I asked. “Because we’re ranchers,” said my brother. “We’re not city people.” “Oh,” I said, “then it’s okay for us to be dirty?” “We aren’t dirty,” he said, laughing. “To be dirty means you never wash. We wash our clothes and take baths all the time. It’s just that people that live on a ranch get dirt on themselves.””

Victor Villaseñor

My eyes went big. I’d never thought of this. My brother was really smart.
Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

People , Parent , Time , Housing

““YOU’VE GOT RAGE. THEN YOU RETURN TO THE STATES WITH THAT RAGE! YOU DON’T RUN AWAY! You saw bad, terrible things happen to you and other Mexican kids in school, then YOU DON’T CHICKENSHIT OUT! No, you go back, and you do something with that rage that will MAKE A DIFFERENCE for all those kids! That’s the beauty of the United States! Even the little guy can fight back!”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Beauty , Guy , Rage

““Look,” said Jake, “last night, after you went to bed, we told your dad how we’d come across you running away from home.” “You did?” I said. “Yes, we did. It was the honest thing to do, son. And you should’ve seen the hurt look on your dad’s face, because, you see, Mexican kids don’t run away from home. White kids, gringo kids, like me and Luke, we’re the ones who run from home, but Mexicans, they ain’t never do that.”

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Home , Hurt , Night

““Look at me closely, amigo,” said my dad. “Here is a hundred-dollar bill just to start with. Thirty dollars of this is for you to put in your own pocket right now. Capiche?” The bartender’s whole attitude changed. Suddenly he wasn’t tired anymore. “Yes, mi general, entiendo!” he said. “Good, and give another twenty to the chef in back and ten to the dishwasher. That leaves forty for my son and me to drink and eat a little something.” “But of course!” said the barkeeper. “The whole place is open for you! Which tequila would you like?” he added anxiously. “Herradura, and a couple of Modelo cervezas.” “I like Dos Equis,” I said. “The dark one.” “Okay,” said my dad, “one Modelo and one dark Dos Equis.” The bartender was flying, moving, truly enjoying the whole show. My dad winked at me. “Like I always say, to tip after the meal is stupid. Tip first and big, and the whole world changes.””

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Stupidity , World , Drink , Change

“Marina was about eight years older than my sister Tencha, so this made her about eighteen years older than me. She was presently a reporter for the New York Times. When she was in high school, she’d won the Underwood Typewriter typing contest, doing well over a hundred words a minute without a single mistake, setting a national record. She attributed her fast hands to her cotton-picking days as a young girl in Scottsdale, Arizona.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Girl , Sister , Time

““DO YOU HEAR ME?” I now screamed to the heavens, driving this information into the deepest crevices of my mind. “I, VICTOR EDMUNDO VILLASEÑOR, TAKE THIS HOLY OATH BEFORE YOU, GOD ALMIGHTY, as your son, to write my people’s story WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL! I’ll write! I’ll do my part with all the power and intensity that I put into wrestling, hunting, trying to castrate myself, and chess!”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

God , People , Soul , Heart

““Promise me,” he said, “that you’ll say nothing, and if something happens to me, you’ll always honor our parents.” I swallowed. He was scaring me. “Look,” he continued, “I’ve met a lot of rich kids and their parents at the Academy, and I’ll tell you, there are no parents that I’m prouder to have as my father and mother than ours. They rose up with nothing, Mundo, except guts and faith and love. Do you understand?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t,” I said. He licked his lips. He seemed to be licking his lips all the time now. “You will,” he said. “You just pay close attention, and you will.””

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Love , Faith , Understanding , Parent

“My heart was beat, beat, beating. No one, except my mother, had ever looked at me or spoken to me like this. “You are the most sensitive and beautiful man I’ve ever met,” she said with tears coming to her eyes. I took a big, deep breath. This was just too much. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been called stupid and ugly for so long that this was really tough to hear. Once, I’ll never forget, two seniors at the Academy had stopped me and ordered me to attention, and I’d snapped to, as we underclassmen were supposed to do. They’d walked around me, carefully inspecting my uniform, and one of them then said, “Is this the cadet?””

Victor Villaseñor

“Yes,” said the other one. “I agree with you; you’re right,” said the first one. “This is the ugliest cadet in the school!”
Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Stupidity , School , Beauty , Tear

“Later, I heard my brother ask our father why he’d been so generous. “A man can never be too generous,” said our dad, “when he’s generous to a good, hardworking honest hombre, because that man will then break his back to do all he can for you. But…you be generous to a relative or a lazy, no-good worker, and they then think you’re a fool, lose respect for you, and start thinking you owe them something.”

Victor Villaseñor

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Fools , Thinking

“And besides, now that I’d finished high school, all I wanted to do was to stay on the ranch and work with our workers from Mexico. These were my people. This was where I belonged and felt at home.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Home , People

“Then the next morning Captain Moffet, my English teacher, gave me the test. I got such a headache, just trying to think carefully so I wouldn’t make any mistakes, that my test score dropped to 96. I couldn’t breathe. This meant that I was mentally slow, that I’d been lucky to even get into high school. My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t know what to do. I asked Captain Moffet if my parents needed to know this. I felt so ashamed. I should’ve been the one to die, not my brother, Joseph. He’d been smart, just like my little sister Linda, who at six years old could read better than me.”

Victor Villaseñor

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Reading , Making love , Teachers