How we cite our quotes: ("Abbreviated chapter name," page)
Quote #10
"Sometimes I ask myself if my adventures, such as they are, equal experience. I think of Flaubert, who spent most of his life in the same French village, or Emily Dickinson, whose poems echoed the cadence of the local church bells. I wonder if the farthest distance I have to travel isn't inside my own head." ("Matrix," 178)
Pilar tries to formulate a universal concept of what it takes to have something important to say to the world. Her conclusion, as you can see, is mixed. She wants to live in the world so that she can have the authority of universal reality on her side, but she still understands that constructing her own personal narrative has value, too.
Quote #11
"I aim my radio at the farthest point in the sky and click it on. It pops and sputters like my mother's old car. I turn and turn the dial, half expecting to hear Mom singing in her deep-throated way, singing the sad words of her Beny Moré song." ("God's Will, 191)
Ivanito's desire and belief that he can contact his dead mother by using a pair of rabbit ears meshes well with the elements of magical realism in the work. But this incident also shows the level of desperation experienced by some of the characters who are confined against their will and can't find a way to fit in and thrive.
Quote #12
"I left her in an asylum. I told the doctors to make her forget. They used electricity. They fed her pills. I used to visit her every Sunday. She told me to turn on my electric brooms and then laughed in my face. She told me that geometry would strangle nature. She made a friend who had murdered her husband..." ("Changó," 195)
Lourdes gets schooled by her deceased father concerning the reality of Celia's life. She doesn't like what she's hearing because it doesn't mesh with her version of reality. If Celia really did love her and her beloved father was to blame for her alienation, that would really rock her world. In the end, she's really not willing to go there.