Quotes About Puerto Rico

#1. I never thought anything was strange in Puerto Rico other than the big mosquitos; because I was born there, nothing was really foreign to me. I think what I saw strange coming to L.A. was that a lot of people are a little bit two-faced. In Puerto Rico, you don't get that.

Joyce Giraud

#2. Federal program and services outlay in Puerto Rico is approximately $10 billion per year.

Dick Thornburgh

#3. Pageants were an amazing platform that gave a little girl like me from the mountains of my beautiful Puerto Rico a chance to travel, explore the world, meet amazing people, work for great charities and be a voice to empower women wherever I went. For all those things, I am grateful.

Joyce Giraud

#4. I've always been athletic. Growing up in Puerto Rico, and being in the countryside, I was always running around. I also played volleyball, basketball, and I ran track. I was always very conscious of my body.

Joan Smalls

#5. Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress.

Dick Thornburgh

#6. If Congress does its job in this regard, the residents of Puerto Rico will be empowered to act in their own self-interest and express their future political status aspirations accordingly.

Dick Thornburgh

#7. Jesse Jackson's wife was arrested in Puerto Rico while protesting the naval bombings there. Jesse said he was holding a meeting with four of his secretaries to decide what to do and that these meetings could run well into the night.

Jay Leno

#8. My brother, Mario, is in show business and so are all my cousins on my dad's side. We come from a family of musicians. My grandmother's sister in Puerto Rico plays five instruments.

Irene Cara

#9. I hope I will live to see a final meeting of the minds between Puerto Rico and statehood, but [even] if I don't live that long, I am certain it will happen.

Luis A. Ferre

#10. You want a lesson? I'll give you a lesson. How about a geography lesson? My father's from Puerto Rico. My mother's from El Salvador. And neither one of those is Mexico.

Jennifer Esposito

#11. Now that the there is a path for the people of Puerto Rico to express their self-determination on Puerto Rico's political status, there are some who seek to block that path.

Dick Thornburgh

#12. Puerto Rico is one of those places you can be as quiet or as crazy as you want, because there's so much nightlife. I have to take the craziness carefully.

Bruce Forsyth

#13. I don't want to be named myself as one of the elite boxers of Puerto Rico. That's for the fans and for the people that know about boxing. I just want to do my job the best I can, and I am going to do that the rest of my career.

Miguel Cotto

#14. Puerto Rico was the Republic of Texas on jet-fuel testosterone and psychedelic estrogen.

David R. Martin

#15. Puerto Rico has two divergent paths forward. After a reasonable transition period, it could become a state. Or it can become a sovereign nation.

Pedro Pierluisi

#16. At the Tourist Bureau they talk about the cooling trade winds that caress the shores of Puerto Rico every day and night of the year - but Nelson Otto was a man the trade winds never seemed to touch.

Hunter S. Thompson

#17. In Puerto Rico, we have a lot of traditions. We eat a very typical thing that's called 'pasteles' - it's almost like a tamale made of bananas, and we make it all together. Like, all the women of the family unite, and it's a very big deal, a very big thing.

Joyce Giraud

#18. Aside from being a Latina, my family immigrated from Puerto Rico and Yugoslavia so I know all about that. I wouldn't be able to do what I do today if they didn't come to America. Everybody has an immigration story.

Naya Rivera

#19. I did not feel 'evil' when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.

David Ogilvy

#20. The government of Puerto Rico has every right to hold a plebiscite, to consult the people of Puerto Rico regarding their wishes. But the truth is that for a change in the status of Puerto Rico to happen, you need both Congress and Puerto Rico agreeing to it.

Pedro Pierluisi

#21. The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic," said Manuel. "They have swayed public opinion. I would not be surprised that the countries go into war, and we are caught in the middle.

Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini

#22. I haven't traveled in Africa nearly as much as I'd like to. I've been there a few times, and I'd like to learn more about the various cultures in Africa. But that's the basis point of where all of the music that I love is based upon, from Africa to Cuba to Puerto Rico to South America.

Chick Corea

#23. Yet, individuals and corporations in Puerto Rico pay no federal income tax.

Dick Thornburgh

#24. Without question, so many people, throughout my life, never think of Puerto Rico as part of the United States. Many people have no idea what the relationship is between Puerto Rico and the United States. And certainly, I have been asked if we are citizens.

Sonia Sotomayor

#25. When I married Wilnelia, one of the first things I wanted to know about Puerto Rico was the quality of the golf courses.

Bruce Forsyth

#26. American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898.

Noam Chomsky

#27. My parents always talk about Puerto Rico. My dad's whole family lives in Puerto Rico. My great grandma lives in Puerto Rico and I got to meet her a couple years ago.

Danny Garcia

#28. Puerto Rico is the perfect meeting place between Spain, the country I come from, and America, the country where I now belong. The meeting point of two worlds where magic can happen.

Jose Andres

#29. However, the sovereignty of the states is constitutionally defined and recognized, while the powers of the local government in Puerto Rico are defined by, and subject to alteration under, federal statutory law.

Dick Thornburgh

#30. Dick Dart emerged from the ether during a flight from New York with my wife and children to Puerto Rico.

Peter Straub

#31. I know Spanish pretty well. I'm half-Puerto Rican - my mom is from Puerto Rico - so I have a lot of family there, and my mom's first language is Spanish. But growing up in the States, and with my dad being from the States, I'm kind of just like this white kid.

David Lambert

#32. I was actually born and raised in Puerto Rico. I was born to a single mom. She was a wonderful woman, and she taught me to believe in myself, to work hard, play by the rules. She wanted me to get a good education, and she just told me that the best thing I could do is just study hard.

Raul Labrador

#33. Puerto Rico loses out on billions of dollars annually because it is treated unequally under a range of federal programs, including tax credits available to millions of households in the States that do not pay federal income taxes.

Pedro Pierluisi

#34. I'm not an immigrant - I was born and raised in New York. My parents are Puerto Rican, and Puerto Rico is a part of the U.S., for the people that don't know. So my whole life, I've identified as an American. There are times when I've gone to Puerto Rico, and there, I'm seen as the American cousin.

Elizabeth Rodriguez

#35. The most important thing is to find the balance between city and nature. I have that 'hippie quality' - my husband is a super-hippie Los Angeles boy - so we'll have to make time to go to Puerto Rico, and upstate New York, and be sure we get to do outdoorsy stuff like that.

Ana Ortiz

#36. I was very skinny and very lanky and kind of awkward. In Puerto Rico, everybody is a little more voluptuous, with these beautiful bodies, and there I was, the skinny, lanky girl.

Joyce Giraud

#37. Apparently tired of waiting for clear direction from Congress, the people of Puerto Rico have used the tools provided by their own local constitution to schedule a vote for Dec. 13 on the status of the island.

Dick Thornburgh

#38. 'Teen Beach Movie' was a lot of fun because we were in Puerto Rico on an island - you can't even call it work!

Ross Lynch

#39. After four centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898. Residents were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, and the federal government has allowed Puerto Rico to exercise authority over its local affairs in a manner similar to the 50 states.

Pedro Pierluisi

#40. Over 90 percent of parents in Puerto Rico want their children to be totally fluent in English.

Luis Fortuno

#41. If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.

Dick Thornburgh

#42. Yet, Puerto Rico's economic convergence and political integration with the rest of the nation is in a state of arrest - even though the island has been within the national borders, political system and customs territory of the U.S. for a century.

Dick Thornburgh

#43. Puerto Rico has a stray dog problem. Tens of thousands of homeless canines - hundreds of thousands, by some estimates - live and die on the streets and beaches all over this Caribbean island of almost four million people.

Juliana Hatfield

#44. But being on location and shooting, whether its in Puerto Rico or Atlanta, it always reminds me of how really cool my job can be. Interacting with the fans is one of the best parts of it.

Dwayne Johnson

#45. To be the first Puerto Rican to win a world title in four divisions would be an achievement. Gomez, Benitez, there have been a lot of good fighters from Puerto Rico before me. When I started boxing, Tito Trinidad was our big star.

Miguel Cotto

#46. We knew Down South. Everyone had one. Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico.

Jacqueline Woodson

#47. I'm proud of who I am, and I'm proud I grew up in Puerto Rico.

Raul Labrador

#48. I'm from Puerto Rico. I know heat.

Amaury Nolasco

#49. There were a lot of kids from Puerto Rico at my high school in Florida; people always assumed I was Puerto Rican. Even now in California, I get talked to on the street in Spanish constantly!

Torrey DeVitto

#50. My grandfather came over from Puerto Rico and raised his kids speaking English so that it would be easier for them to assimilate.

Aubrey Plaza

#51. In a ravenous fifty-five-day spasm during the summer of 1898, the United States asserted control over five far-flung lands with a total of 11 million inhabitants: Guam, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. Never in history has a nation leaped so suddenly to overseas empire. At

Stephen Kinzer

#52. I said I deserved a home fight, either Philly or Puerto Rico, since I'm always going to someone else's place to fight. Everyone thought it was a great idea to go back to Puerto Rico.

Danny Garcia

#53. I visit the island [Puerto Rico] as often as I humanly can. And I visit with community as frequently as possible, given the demands on me. I meet with kids. I meet with adults. I try to spend time and to listen to people talk about their lives.

Sonia Sotomayor

#54. In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government.

Dick Thornburgh

#55. My mom's family is Russian Jewish, and my dad's Puerto Rico Catholic, so it's kind of a weird mix.

Ian Gomez

#56. I didn't know I had this many fans in Puerto Rico. I'm going to carry this memory to my grave.

Allen Iverson

#57. When I was 11, I went to Puerto Rico for a month to stay with my grandmother. To see the way people lived there and experience my own culture was wonderful.

Andrea Navedo

#58. I had such a great upbringing in Puerto Rico, and it was just a very normal life.

Roselyn Sanchez

#59. That is why, with optimism instead of fear, all those who want to see Puerto Rico's status resolved should seek the truth about each option, including the upside and the downside of each.

Dick Thornburgh

#60. You know, you may not be born in Puerto Rico, but Puerto Rican is definitely born in you.

Rosie Perez

#61. When I left Chicago, people said, 'Careful with that Texas heat'. I'm like, 'I'm from Puerto Rico. I know heat.'

Amaury Nolasco

#62. I'm very used to hurricanes. I'm from Puerto Rico and we have 3 or 4 a year. When you have no power, no light, no email, no place to go, you realize who your loved ones are and where you are in your life at that moment.

Luis D. Ortiz

#63. I was ballet dancing at four, playing piano by six, and doing commercials by 12. When I was 21, I was on the number one live comedy show in Puerto Rico. I told my parents, 'I'm going to New York to become a performer.' And I left.

Roselyn Sanchez

#64. They (the people of Puerto Rico) are truly the sweetest people on earth.

Johnny Depp

#65. We're going to Puerto Rico, where we're gonna close. And we're so excited, we can't see straight.

Chita Rivera

#66. We were fighting for them in wars against people that we had more in common with than with the United States of Banana.

Giannina Braschi

#67. The sun and the endless hours of swinging a machete in the fields had taken him from child to old man with no stage in between.

Judith Ortiz Cofer