When We Left Cuba Quotes

“If I’m going to have regrets in this life, I’d rather them be for the chances I took and not the opportunities I let slip away.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Dreams never die all at once. They die in pieces, floating a little farther and farther away each day.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“There’s no point in denying it. Anger is my faithful companion.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The truth is, time is a luxury—yes. But like so many other luxuries in life, it is best savored rather than gorged,”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“It’s funny how your sense of home can change, isn’t it?”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The only way to stop being afraid of something is to confront it. To take away its power over you.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“some things are perpetually out of our reach, and no matter how badly we wish it were otherwise, there are some battles whose outcomes are decided not in our hands, but in the stars.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Artists flock to him, world leaders praise him, the intellectual set fawns over him, writers and poets dine at his table, but for all of their “enlightenment,” they do not bother to look beneath the green-fatigued facade. Is his uniform still so romantic when they learn how many men have seen those fatigues in the last moments of their lives, condemned to death without any semblance of justice? Would they still admire him if they heard the shots from the firing squads, the cries of the murdered, smelled the blood of their countrymen? Write a poem about that, our slow, never-ending death.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The sight of their fervor disgusts me. These people don’t have to live under his regime. They are free here, are able to protest against their government. They celebrate the man who has taken such liberties away from us.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“There’s some comfort in this civility, in the enduring sense that people must carve out joys where they can, undertake the responsibilities to which they have pledged themselves.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“If I’ve learned anything at this point, it’s that life comes down to timing. Things happen the way they are supposed to, the seemingly insignificant moments stringing together to lead you down a path you never imagined traversing, with a man you can’t let go of and you can’t keep.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The truth is always so very complicated. I'm supposed to say people rarely surprise me, that I've become so good at reading them that I can predict their actions and all that nonsense, but that's not true at all. People are constantly surprising me. The world is not so black-and-white... there is a great deal of gray.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The thing about people telling you you're beautiful your whole life, is the more that you hear it, the more meaningless it becomes. What does beautiful even mean, anyway? That your features are arranged in a shape someone, somewhere arbitrarily decided is pleasing? Beautiful never quite matches up to the other things you could be, smart, interesting, brave.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“People believe what you tell them, Miss Perez. They don’t want to concern themselves with matters of government and policy; they simply want someone to tell them that the men for whom they do their civic duty and cast a vote are good, God-fearing men. My voice can be a powerful one.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Oh, charming, exactly want I want, a philanderer”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“You don’t get it, do you? People don’t immediately dismiss you because of the way you look, don’t flash you a condescending smile and tell you some conversations aren’t meant for you, you’re too young, too female, too pretty, too sheltered to understand the world around you. You aren’t treated like a painting, or a delicate vase, or a broodmare, as though your worth only lies in your beauty and what they can barter for it.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Beatriz wouldn’t allow it, and when she”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“flaw in that particular plan. Our aunt Mirta, our father’s younger sister, came to visit us in Cuba a few times, but I always gathered my mother didn’t approve”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“And still, “love” isn’t the magic word I thought it was when I was a young girl.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Beautiful” never quite matches up to the other things you could be: smart, interesting, brave.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The thing about people telling you you're beautiful your whole life is that the more you hear it, the more meaningless it becomes. What does "beautiful" even mean anyway? That your features are arranged in a shape someone, somewhere, arbitrarily decided is pleasing? "Beautiful" never quite matches up to the other things you could be: smart, interesting, brave.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“The truth is, time is a luxury—yes. But like so many other luxuries in life, it is best savored rather than gorged, and so I spend ages doing my hair and makeup in preparation for our dates, take shopping trips with my great-nieces to buy new outfits, keeping the secret of Nick close to my heart.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“I thought my love for Cuba would be the hardest thing for me to reconcile, but in truth, it's the anger that's the hardest to dispense of. Love ebbs and flows, a low-level hum in the background, but anger sinks its claws in you and refuses to let go.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“He steps forward, obliterating the space between us once more, his cologne filling my nostrils, my eyes level with the snowy white front of his shirt. His hand comes to rest on my waist, the heat from his palm warming me throught eh thin fabric of my dress. He takes my hand with his free one, our fingers entwined. My heart turns over in my chest as I follow his lead. Unsurprising, he's a natural, confident dancer. We don't speak, but then again, considering the conversation between our bodies-the rustle of fabric, brushing of limbs, fleeting touches that imprint themselves upon my skin-words seem superfluous and far less intimate.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba

“Ironic, really, when you think of all the times my mother and Magda worried over my virtue, guarding my virginity as though it was the most prized part of me. They worried far less over my heart.”
― Chanel Cleeton, When We Left Cuba