Girls Burn Brighter Quotes
"Anything a person has held is a thing they never really let go."
"Imagine not coming true. Imagine not having hope."
"That conversation. It would pop up out of nowhere at times, seemingly out of nothing."
"No one has ever cooked for me. My mother must’ve, but I don’t remember it."
"You see this here? This is freedom. This is the human spirit, perfected."
"It was a perfect oval. The mouth a small almond. One of his hands hung listlessly at his side, as if his fingers ached for the toys or the marbles or the toffee he’d been forced to set aside."
"If you forget, it’s like you’ve joined the stone at the bottom of the sea."
"You, you, girl of mine, you’re the one with wings."
"It didn’t seem possible that she could make tea, make something as ordinary as tea."
"What other use could it have, she thought, this body of mine? What other use?"
"My dear, how about some bhajis for tea today? I feel like eating bhajis. Would you mind?"
"It was like being handed a kite in a strong wind."
"Is that how she’d meant to spend her life? Is that how lives were meant to be spent?"
"She watched them fall with a certain delight, and then she turned to the armoire, opened it, and took out the locked box."
"She stood perfectly still in front of the mirror—it was the most she’d ever seen of herself."
"Your husband won’t leave you. As long as you have proper breasts, a man won’t leave you."
"Time was no kind of mystery. It was naked and unblinking; it was like the buffalo she saw plowing the fields."
"There were six books she had to track and balance and audit against the money that was coming in."
"Every so often, I met other fugitives. Sometimes tribals. But they generally left me alone."
"I’d catch an animal, in a trap or with a crude bow and arrow, and kill it without a thought."
"Find out for me the depth of the forest floor."
"The words hung in the air for a moment, and then they began another journey."
"It felt to Savitha as if a light had been turned off, as if night had crashed through her like an anvil."
"The thick glob of spit dried and puckered on Savitha’s cheek."
"What mattered was that once, long ago, a line of indigo thread had met a line of red, and out had poured a thing of beauty."
"She looked at the space at the end of her left arm and thought, Would I still have you?"
"Let them eat you, let them, but be sure to eat them back."
"It was stillness, she learned, that at times was the greatest movement."
"There is no way to explain a thing that is perfect."
"I might drown in the Krishna after all, Nanna, she said to him. Just twenty years too late for you."
"It was tragic to be a burn victim—oil, acid, dowry disputes, cruel in-laws, all that—though what was expected next was a humble, pained exit, feminine in its sorrow, in its sense of proportion. In other words, what was expected was invisibility. For the woman to disappear. But Poornima refused, or rather, she never even considered it."
"What is your name, madam?" "Poornima." "What is your business?" "I am accountant."
"Because I was just a boy," her father said, "and because it was dark, and because that’s when all the fears come out: when you’re a boy—or a girl—and when it’s dark."
"But my fears aren’t nothing. My fears for my family, for their well-being, are real."
"She would walk home after class, or ride the bus, and speak to the passing scenes. She’d say, 'Bird. Hello. I am learning English.'"
"It wasn’t till that evening, while she waited for Mohan, that she saw a few lights come on inside the neighboring houses, and every now and then saw a figure pass in front of a window; Poornima nearly whooped with joy to see them."
"She then looked over and saw that Madhavi was staring at a display of pastries at the coffee shop near where they were sitting. She said, 'Wait here,' and went and bought one for her."
"You think you’re not black, but when it comes down to it, when it comes down to cotton, you are. Everybody who isn’t white is black. You understand?"
"She watched the girl eat. It was as deeply satisfying as if she were her mother, watching the way her eyes glistened when she reached for the pastry, how she broke off the sugary dough piece by piece, wanting it to last, and then nibbled the pieces with such pure and ravenous delight that Poornima nearly took her head in her hands, held it to her chest."
"I’m still monitoring you. Every day for those three weeks. Don’t think I won’t."
"She bought the cot for a hundred rupees and slept on the mat that had been underneath. She kept the stove for the time being but promised it to her landlady when she left."
"You’re alive, Savitha said. The crow watched her, still laughing, in the silver and starry night."
"But how was I to know? she thought, lying on the ground. How was I to know: that it was always this: always the boll to the loom to the cloth, and then, finally, and with such fragility, to the heart."
"And what was there to the east? Nothing. Just as there had been nothing to the west."
"For it was here, under this white light and in this horrible stench, that Savitha realized how lost she was. How mislaid. How all the beacons of the world, standing all in a row, couldn’t save her."
"The world felt so slick, as though it had washed over and out of her: time, the organs weighted with hunger, the memory of a slippery hand, holding yogurt rice and banana to her starved lips."