In The Time Of The Butterflies Quotes
"The woman will never find the old house behind the hedge of towering hibiscus at the bend of the dirt road."
"The Mirabal sisters are not known there, for which she is also sorry for it is a crime that they should be forgotten."
"But she’s long since resigned herself to Novembers."
"Otherwise, they go on and on, asking the most impertinent questions."
"The voice laughs, embarrassed. 'Of course. You must think I’m so outside of things.'"
"She bends to her special beauty, the butterfly orchid she smuggled back from Hawaii two years ago."
"Perhaps this is the only way to grieve the big things—in snippets, pinches, little sips of sadness."
"Dedé looks up at those young faces, and she knows it is herself at that age she misses the most."
"I worry that you’re losing your faith," I told her. "That’s our pearl of great price; you know, without it, we’re nothing."
"How could our loving, all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so?"
"My family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo, just as before losing my baby, Jesus had not taken anything away from me."
"I started noting the deadness in Padre Ignacio’s voice, the tedium between the gospel and communion, the dry papery feel of the host in my mouth."
"I pictured myself on a hot day falling, slowly and deeply, into those cold layers of water."
"I am not saying I don’t love our president, because I do. It’s like if I were to find out Papá did something wrong. I would still love him, wouldn’t I?"
"I fooled them all! Yes, for a long time after losing my faith, I went on, making believe."
"Even El Jefe had attributed the failure of the invasion from Cayo Confites to our patron saint."
"Everyone knew my public sorrow, the lost baby, but none my private one, my loss of faith."
"God, who had played the biggest joke on us, could stand a little teasing."
"It’s as if I’d been facing the wrong way all my life."
"I feel a tremor of excitement, as if I were about to meet an estranged friend with whom I longed to be reconciled."
"The strangest time was when Minou came from Fela asking after Virgilio Morales."
"It was disrespectful to your mother’s memory. She was a Catholic, Minou, a Catholic!"
"The party is breaking up anyway, this rain is a perfect excuse."
"I close my eyes and felt her question join mine. Yes, why?"
"I feel like I’m wasting my life in Ojo de Agua."
"You’re not bothering anything," I defended them, caressing the baby’s cheek."
"Dios te bendiga," she sniffles, then reminds me, "Watch your you-know-what!"
"You must look on me as your protector. Young ladies are the flowers of our country."
"Yes, I denied knowing him. I was afraid"—again I choose my words carefully—"of displeasing El Jefe."
"I’d sooner jump out that window than be forced to do something against my honor."
"I want to know things I don’t even know what they are."
"Build your house upon a rock, He said, do my will."
"I’m not going to sit back and watch my babies die, Lord."
"Forty-nine men and boys martyred in those mountains."
"I didn’t keep count how many had died. I kept my hand on my stomach, concentrating on what was alive."
"Our new name was Acción Clero-Cultural. Please note, action as the first word!"
"You could not chase after a boy with your machete and enter the kingdom of heaven."
"Our mission was to effect an internal revolution rather than wait for an outside rescue."
"The time was now, for the Lord had said, I come with the sword as well as the plow to set at liberty them that are bruised."
"If you had seen what I saw on that mountain, I pleaded with him, weeping all over again for that dead boy."
"Your first responsibility is to your children, your husband, and your home!"
"So it was that our house became the motherhouse of the movement."
"The church had at last thrown in its lot with the people!"
"I don’t know how it happened that my cross became bearable."
"We cannot remain indifferent to the grievous blows that have afflicted so many good Dominican homes."
"We have a saying around here, the humpback never gets tired carrying his burden on his back."
"Hear my cry, Jefe. Release my sisters and their husbands and mine."
"I wanted to turn him towards his better nature."
"I got up from bed ready to set up housekeeping at Mamá’s."
"The truth is, I didn’t think it’d get to her. I’ve gotten so I suspect everyone."
"Eight prisoners pardoned yesterday at the National Palace."
"The truth is ..." Mamá began, but stopped herself. Why give out the valuable truth to a hidden microphone?
"I must say I was a little surprised to be told you were here to see me," Pena went on.
"Stop thinking like that, Minerva says. Then she tries all over again to lead me through this exercise where I concentrate on nice thoughts so as not to get desperate—"
"But what harm can a little letter do?" Mate argued.
"You must gather up the broken threads and tie them together."
"Adversity was like a key in the lock for me."
"We had suffered a setback but we had not been beaten."
"The cells in your systems have atrophied and are dead."
"Tell me something, what's it like being posted in Puerto Plata?"
"When you die for your country, you do not die in vain."
"This is your martyrdom, Dede, to be alive without them."
"I am pro whoever is right at any moment in time."
"The nightmare is over, Dedé. Look at what the girls have done."
"All the way home, I am trembling, I am not sure why."