Say Her Name Quotes

“Hold her tight, if you have her; hold her tight, I thought, that's my advice to all the living. Breathe her in, put your nose in her hair, breathe her in deeply. Say her name. It will always be her name. Not even death can steal it. Same alive as dead, always. Aura Estrada.”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name

“You always felt destined for stardom of one kind or another. But the fear that maybe that wasn't true wouldn't leave you alone. That you were no more than the classes you'd taken, the schools you'd attended, the books you'd read, the languages you spoke, your scholarships, your master's thesis on Borges and the English writers, and so on, but nobody unique, with a talent only your own. You were desperate for something that was yours alone. I was yours alone, but that isn't what you meant.”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name

“Maybe memory is overrated. Maybe forgetting is better. (Show me the Proust of forgetting, and I'll read him tomorrow.) Sometimes it's like juggling a hundred thousand crystal balls in the air at once, trying to keep all these memories going. Every time one falls to the floor and shatters into dust, another crevice cracks open inside me, through which another chunk of who we were disappears forever.”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name

“ONE AFTERNOON DURING THAT FINAL SPRING, AFTER SHE HAD TURNED THIRTY AURA TURNED TO ME FROM HER DESK WHILE I LAY ON THE BED READING, AND SHE SAID, 'WE HAVE EVERYTHING WE NEED TO BE HAPPY. WE DONT HAVE TO BE RICH. WE CAN GET JOBS IN THE UNIVERSITIES IF WE NEED THEM. WE HAVE OUR BOOKS, OUR READING, OUR WRITING, AND WE HAVE EACH OTHER, FRANK. WE DONT NEED MORE TO BE HAPPY, WE ARE SO LUCKY. DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY WE ARE?”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name

“My father used to munch on whole onions as if they were apples, I'd told her once. I thought of it as evidence of his hearty Russian peasant appetite and ways. No one who ate onions like that could have a weak constitution. A few days later, alone in the kitchen, I impulsively took a bite out of a red onion, to feel what it was like. In the bedroom, all the way at the other end of the apartment, Aura heard the crunch and shouted, Did you just bite into an onion?! Don't you even try to kiss me now!
How did she know it wasn't an apple?”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name

“Adesea, dimineața, imediat după ce se trezea, Aura se întorcea spre mine în pat și zicea: Ay, mi amor, que feo eres. Por qué me casé contigo, cu o voce drăgăstoasă și jucăuș-obraznică. Vai, iubitule, ce urât ești. De ce m-am măritat cu tine?
Soy feo? întrebam eu cu mâhnire. Acesta era unul dintre obiceiurile noastre.
Sí, mi amor, zicea ea, eres feo, pobrecito. Mă săruta și amândoi râdeam. Un râs, pot să spun în ceea ce mă privește, care începea în profunzimile burții mele și vuia prin mine, întinzându-mi pe chip zâmbetul acela năuc care se vede în pozele cu mine din acei ani, rânjetul acela tont care nu mi-a părăsit fața nici măcar când mi-am recitat jurămintele la cununie - expresia Aurei era, în schimb, adecvat emoționată și solemnă, chiar dacă un pic uluită - ceea ce a făcut ca fotografiile noastre de la nuntă să fie un pic stânjenitor de privit.”
― Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name