"He yanks me by the wrist, thrusting his pelvis at me in a vulgar way, and I can see my hand in an endless slow motion rise--a mind all its own--and come down on the astonished, made-up face."

"Sor Asuncion comes right out and says your older sister has been caught sneaking out of school. Then, before I can even put that in my head, she asks me if our Tio Mon, who lives in La Vega, is ill, yes or no. I take one look at Minerva's sick-looking face and I nod yes, our Tio Mon is ill, and then I invent with sarampion, last I heard."

"A young man was staring down at me, his face alluring in the same animal way as his feet. The cheeks were swarthy with a permanent shadow, this thick brows joined in the center. Underneath his thin guayabera, I could see the muscles of his broad shoulders shifting as he reached down and gave me a wad of bills to put in the poor box as his donation. Later, he would say that I gave him a beatific smile. Why not? I had seen the next best thing to Jesus, my earthly groom."

“Now after thirty-four years, the commemorations and interviews and presentations of posthumous honors have almost stopped, so that for months at a time, _____ is able to take up her own life again. But she’s long since resigned herself to Novembers.”

"But [the rabbit] wouldn't budge! She was used to her little pen. I kept slapping her, harder each time, until she started whimpering like a scared child. I was the one hurting her, insisting she be free. Silly bunny, I thought. You're nothing at all like me."

"Each visitor would break my heart all over again, but I would sit on this very rocker and listen for as long as they had something to say. It was the least I could do, being the one saved."

"I have been a disaster diary keeper. Last year, only one entry, and the year is already half over . . ."

"Their life together had collapsed. From puppydog devotion, he had moved on to a moody bosiness complicated with intermittent period of dogged remorse . . . True to her nature, ________ had made the best of things, eager for order, eager for peace."

"Bug Eye stood before me, holding a rod with a little switch. When he touched me with it, my whole body jumped with exquisite pain. I felt my spirit snapping loose, soaring above my body and looking down at the scene."

"My hand shook. I would not tell the others. I t could only make things worse, and Mate's asthmas had just begun to calm down. But in my own head, I was working it all out . . .The soldier was a plant. How foolish we'd been . . ."

"______ took the chimney off the lamp, and with a trembling hand, fed the letter to the flame. The paper lit up."

"The fear is the worse part. Every time I hear footsteps coming down the hals, or the clink of the key turning in the lock, I'm tempted to curl up in the corner like a hurt animal, whimpering, wanting to be safe."