Catalina Quotes

“The problem with being an object of beauty, a beautiful object, is that you exist only when you're looked at and thus to remain alive you must be constantly looked at, the way some sharks need to be in motion to breath. It feels like a soul death when their eyes are off you.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“My uncle’s death confirmed all of my grandfather’s fears about himself and his place in the family. He could not protect. He could not provide. Emasculation at the hands of the state is a very cunning thing for the state to do because men will never see it coming from the state. They’ll blame the subjects in their own kingdoms, the women and children to whom they are lords. The only people to whom they are lords.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“What we had wasn’t romantic, but it was urgent and possessive and full of ups and downs. If we had been married, we would have had so many vow renewals.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“It was summer in New York and it is only in the summer that I look the way I imagine the Lord created me to look.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“The problem with being an object of beauty, a beautiful object, is that you exist only when you’re looked at and thus to remain alive you must be constantly looked at, the way some sharks need to be in motion to breathe. It feels like soul death when their eyes are off you.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“Childhood religious trauma had made me all but allergic to modest clothing.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“...he yelled all the time and I did not like being yelled at. But fighting him felt like practice for whatever hero's journey God had set aside for me in the future so I did it anyway.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“I admired her for it, for refusing to perform maternal instinct in front of demanding eyes she knew were trying to see it in her.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“I can't say that I liked the flavor, but I don't really think American cuisine is about flavor, it's like a stand against communism.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“Anyway, another thing that kept me from reading the book is that Nathaniel told me to read it and I do not like it when boys tell me what to read.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“Finnegans Wake is the richest, most indulgent, full-fat ice cream of a book and taking an entire semester-long class on any single text was already indulgent, so taking Finnegans Wake felt like an impractical and extravagant thing to do under the circumstances, which is why I did it.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“I don’t think I have it in me to be a poster child.” “You’d make a wonderful poster child.” “I want to sell out and work for a hedge fund like everybody else.” “A hedge fund?” he laughed incredulously. “No, you don’t.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“It was my first time seeing white people dance outside of television and for what it’s worth I thought it was very brave.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“Professor Sandoval was Harvard’s first Latina tenured professor and an absolute star on campus. Her hair was shiny, curly, and black. Her skin was a deep warm brown and she had the tiniest, sparkliest diamond in her nose. One of the most iconic things about Ruby Sandoval is that she wore leather pants, and often. Nothing about it was vulgar, they looked as demure as a pair of Anne Taylor slacks but they were decidedly not Anne Taylor slacks. She was a Latina with a full professorship and she wore perfectly tailored Italian leather pants. It said something. She wasn’t here to lie low.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina

“The first thing the Europeans did when they stepped foot in the New World was name things. I, too, wanted to be discovered and named. I wanted everything wild in me to be given stupid little names like Dendropsophus ozzy and elk. In Garcia Marquez, people in love experienced bouts of vomiting, psychosomatic fevers, and real catatonia. I wanted to make boys sick, too. This is how I wanted to be loved.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Catalina