The Water Museum Quotes

“That irked the crap out of him, but maybe that's just what happens when you get old. Everything's so damned irksome.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Doesn't every town in America have an old-timer called The Professor? That duffer who knows everything and everybody, as long as they are dead.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Museums suck," said Billy.

The bus rattled along between tan fields.

"Right?" said Charlie.

"History," said Higgins. "Shit like that.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Ina the Viking was out in her potato patch waving at him like some idiot. Some people thought life was just the spiffiest thing that ever happened.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Every winter he'd be out here plowing with the big red blade mounted on the Ford, and when he was done opening up his drive, he'd by God get cracking on the neighbors' spreads down the road. Arnie and Ina, good Vikings from Minnesota. The Rays over to the east--they had a kid. Couldn't be trapped out here in snow. That's how America worked. Used to work. That was what made things function. It was all obvious come winter. Some folks wouldn't pitch in with a snow shovel if they saw a naked one-hundred-year-old lady out there struggling with a drift.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“He hadn't enjoyed school all that much, but they could have warned him that language would prove overtaxing.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“To be macho, you must already know everything, know it so well that you're already bored by the knowledge.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Okay," he said, informing the universe he was ready for decisive action.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Lately," said Hubbard, "I have been considering language to be the enemy.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“She bent over the table and proceeded to tip the pitcher over each plate and spill a thick white goo over everything. It covered the turkey and the yams and puddled all over each plate. Roughly the texture of heavy whipping cream. Decker couldn’t, by god, tell what that was supposed to be.

“What is that?” he asked. “Gravy?”

Stung, Araceli backed away from the table and clutched the pitcher to her heart.

“Is los mash potatoes!” she cried and ran to the kitchen in humiliation. They could hear her crying in there.

Dexter rose. “God. Damn. It,” he announced. “Look here. This is my country. This is my country. We been here, working this land, forever. We made our lives here. We planted crops here. We had our children and - and we buried our loved ones here. Right here! Is it too goddamned much to ask that somebody pay the slightest fucking attention to our traditions and history and stop wrecking everything? Could you learn the language? Could you cook a simple meal that anybody from here would recognize as real food? Am I asking too much?”

He was red in the face and shaking. He was embarrassed about the whole thing - ashamed of his comment to Araceli, ashamed to have shown his emotions, ashamed that he had tears in the corners of his eyes. Outbursts were simply not the West Linden way.

Reverend Visser just stared at his own hands with his head bowed. Juan fingered the arrowhead, spun it around and around with one finger. He didn’t want to eat the goopy mash potatoes either. “Yeah, Jefe. That’s what Geronimo said.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Came home to find the Sting CDs gone. Odd. He thought she must have taken the boom box into the kitchen to wash the dishes. But the boom box was also gone. He looked in the bedroom - the bed was stripped. He said aloud, “If the tampons are gone, you have left me.” The medicine cabinet was bare.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum

“Not real rain, of course. But the sound of it. The sizzle and the whisper and the hiss and the splash of it. The blue light along the faux horizon of the room. The projected banners and veils of rain all around them. Rain like lace curtains, rain like smoke, rain like spiderwebs and flags and wind you could see. Rain that sang to their bones, that ached inside their bellies and their hands, rain that made them thirst and cower and hide. Rain they had never felt yet knew as intimately as they knew their own skins. It was dreadful. Sammy clutched Billy as hard as anyone could, and he wept into her red hair and didn’t care if she knew”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum: Stories

“loud. It was as if God’s violence had come upon them in deepest rage, dropping temples and crushing idols to the ground.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Water Museum: Stories