How we cite our quotes: ("Abbreviated chapter name," page)
Quote #7
"And then, as Celia watches, the little santera's moist eyes roll back in her dwarfish head until the whites gleam from two pinpricks, and she trembles once, twice, and slides against Celia in a heap on the sidewalk, smoking like a wet fire, sweet and musky, until nothing is left of her but her fringed cotton shawl." ("Baskets," 159-60)
The spontaneous combustion of Celia's ancient santera wins the award for most dramatic transfiguration in the book. We're not totally sure what caused the little lady to evaporate, but it means nothing good for Celia and her family.
Quote #8
"It's been a month since she stopped eating, and already she's lost thirty-four pounds. She envisions the muscled walls of her stomach shrinking, contracting, slickly clean from the absence of food and the gallons of springwater she drinks. She feels transparent, as if the hard lines of her hulking form were disintegrating." ("Matrix," 167)
And here's Lourdes on her downward weight curve. She embraces the rejection of food as heartily as she previously took to pecan sticky buns. It's clear from the moment that she sits down to Thanksgiving dinner that Lourdes is not a woman who does things by halves, and that moderation in anything won't be a mantra for her life.
Quote #9
"I peel off Andy Warhol's banana sticker and put on the good, thumping, straight-ahead rock and roll. The thick strings vibrate through my fingers, up my arms, down my chest. I don't know what I'm doing but I start thumping that old spruce dresser of an instrument for all it's worth, thumping and thumping, until I feel my life begin." ("Matrix," 181)
Pilar has just suffered through the humiliation of finding her boyfriend in the arms of the whitest girl she knows and is trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs. Somehow, the acquisition of the huge bass guitar gives her someone to be and she draws strength from it.