A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow Quotes

“Thing is, when you put something back together it’s never exactly the same as it was before.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“You're painting stars where I colored black holes”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“You love that boy like you love the kitchen. . .but you add yourself like too much sugar sometimes.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“So I wanted you to choose a future that’s first and foremost yours alone. Not to belong to me. I want you to belong with me.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“She forgets that what she does in one small moment can affect tomorrow.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“I’ve made this deal with the universe. I’ve learned not to ask more of it than what I’m given, both good and bad.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“I know I'll keep some of my mates forever." Her blue eyes meet mine- thoughtful the vibrant, just like her music. "But there are others I don't see much anymore, and I've realized that's okay." She smiles pensively. "Sometimes I put them into songs, and that's where I keep them. Plus, there's always room for new friends.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Recipe for Goodbye From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One Cuban girl. One English boy. One English city. Preparation: Give Polly her kitchen back and share a genuine smile, from one legitimate baker to another. Ride through the countryside on a vintage Triumph Bonneville. Walk through Winchester, all through town and on the paths you ran. Drink vanilla black tea at Maxwell’s. Eat fish and chips and curry sauce at your friend’s pub. Sleep in fits and bits curled up together on St. Giles Hill. *Leave out future talk. Any form of the word tomorrow. Cooking temp: 200 degrees Celsius. You know the conversion by heart.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Mi estrellita, if you shine too bright in his sky, you’re going to burn him out. Burn yourself out, también.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“If you find undissolved sugar in the bottom of your teacup, someone has a crush on you.
-Superstition”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“It’s just too bloody hard. For now, let our time here be our moment.” The moment we cheated worlds and lives and universes for.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“I know what it feels like to fall in love. But I’m not sure what falling out of love feels like.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Mami never went to college, but she majored in drama, anyway, with a minor in extra. She also majored in doing the opposite of what’s best for me.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“don’t know what’s worse, not getting to say goodbye, or saying goodbye to a little more every year.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“A pastry never needs to be overly sweet. It only needs to be memorable.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“And a best-friendship doesn't die. Instead, it runs its own way now, miles over bridges and roads and desert sand. Without us.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“And I don't know what's worse, not getting to say goodbye, or saying goodbye to a little more every year. The tidal wave or the hourglass.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“So much is goodbye and fleeting in my life. I'm losing people and I'm so tired of that feeling.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Another wish I can't even trust the stars with. What language do I use to wish for continents and cultures to bend?”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“No. It's not bad at all." The words rush out of me, outrunning countless Miami echoes and Cuban roots, and everything I packed in my bag for this cold, foreign place. It's entirely true. I'm wearing his sweater and it's okay and a new kind of good that I'm starting to wear his city, too.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Claro, I’m still the girl carrying a trifecta of loss. I always will be. But as I wander along the pavement, I’m just a seventeen-year-old on her way to buy ingredients for Cuban flan. And that feels like the best part of home.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“And pick up my own.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“As a result, toasting somebody with water is considered the same as wishing them and yourself bad luck, or even death.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“I get how counseling or therapy can help people. But I will decide whom I talk to, and when. I couldn’t stop Stefanie from boarding a plane to Africa, or rewind Andrés’s goodbye speech or… Abuela. I couldn’t change the hand of God. But I could have control over my words, my heart, my pain.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Recipe for a Funeral From the Kitchen of Lila Reyes Ingredients: One grieving family. One coffin (it must be white like flour and sugar). One cathedral. One white apron. One abuela, gone, dressed in her favorite blue vestido. Preparation: Sit between your boyfriend and best friend as they try to hold you upright in the pew. Clutch a white apron tightly on your lap. Watch your parents weeping one row ahead, and your sister leaning on your mother’s shoulder. Look back once over the massive cathedral, marveling at the crowd that came for her. *Leave out actually seeing your abuela laid out so lovingly in the white coffin. She is not there. Instead, cry, kneeling during the private viewing with your eyes secretly pressed closed. Cooking temp: 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest your oven goes.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“Why did I think my half-lying plan would be different just because I was genuinely trying to help someone?”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“You found me,” I say. I lost you.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“there? Emotion burns my throat.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

“yes. I’ve grown to find peace and acceptance in not fighting what I can’t control.”
― Laura Taylor Namey, A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow