Ponti Quotes

“She became invincibly beautiful: the clarity of her cheeks, her little ankles, and the lucid poetry others projected onto her blank expression.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“I worry where the mynah birds are hiding. I get a sinking dread about their well-being. I open my eyes and peer into Circe's face. She looks calm, almost beautiful. The darkness in her room is inky and tinged with cobalt blue. The air fizzles like television static. Circe mumbles and draws me towards her. She breathes on me, my mouth no more than three inches away from hers. She smells like Kodomo lion toothpaste and Gardenia bread. I know from this moment that these two things will always remind me of her, with a flinch, an ache. And maybe because of this, over time I will learn to avoid them.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“She waited for that savage tenderness, the instinctual stirring of maternal affection, but even staring at Szu made Amisa feel bloated and foggy. For the first time she understood her own mother with an undeniable, visceral intensity. Her swollen feet were foreign to her. Her skin itched and dry patches began to form on her hands and ankles. She spent ages in the bath lamenting her wrecked body while its fault cried in the nursery room.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“I forgot what she looked like when she smiled and how to enjoy her company, although I never lost the pathetic desire to please her. I loved her so hatefully; around her I felt disloyal, disgusting.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“She eyed me suspiciously, beady eyes finally settling on indifference. I was eight years old and ugliness had already found its way into my features. By then, my face had started to lengthen and narrow, growing from hamster-cute to rat-gross.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“She was quivering. Her jaw was set, mouth pursed. Her eyes watered slightly, as if allergic to what she was seeing. I remember being scared to know exactly what was going through her mind, but being able to guess, even at that age, how she must have felt to see another much more famous, beautiful monster wreaking havoc across the screen.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“Isn't this what magazines mean by star quality: that ineffable thing, charisma? No matter what we say, we humans are fundamentally shallow; it's encoded in our eyes and monkey brains. I have never met anyone like Amisa Tan. She had a brand of bruised yet appealing insouciance that I wanted to grow into one day myself.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“In the Whampoa Convent of the Eternally Blessed, news like this doesn't just rustle down the grapevine. What we have in place is a virile beanstalk, all errant stems and curling leaves. It's impossible to ignore the whispered-down stories. (p. 100)”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti

“Amisa was becoming beautiful, even at ten, but she had something cold about her -- everybody could feel it. This coldness was incongruous in the syrupy heat...She had the consciousness and poise of a cute child aware of her own cuteness, which unsettled both adults and peers. There is the same unforgettable alchemy to being dislikeable as to being universally loved.”
― Sharlene Teo, Ponti