Silver Nitrate Quotes

“You made a haunted house out of your own flesh and bones.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“I feel so alone sometimes, you have no idea. And the loneliness seems to seep into my bones and I get scared because I feel numb. Not depressed or upset: I’m a blank tape. Like someone dragged a magnet against the tape inside my brain and erased all the information. There’s nothing left to feel. I felt it all and I’ll never feel anything new again and I’ll always be alone.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Montserrat had three loves. One was horror movies. The other was her car. The third was Tristán.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Even if the darkness never ended and swallowed him whole, he'd still run to her.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Throw nails behind you when you walk so you cannot be followed,”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“When they were kids, she could outrun all the other children in the neighborhood despite her bad foot. He supposed she was still trying to outrun everyone.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Why? Because to imagine Indigenous intelligence and power would have been unthinkable. We are all taught to despise the whiff of darkness, of Indigenous blood and of Blackness. We speak about ‘bettering the race,’ and by that we mean injecting more European blood into our veins. What Wilhelm said wasn’t considered outrageous at the time. It’s not even outrageous now, sadly.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“One must have hobbies,” Clarimonde said, still focused on her drawing. “Or else the mind atrophies.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“The first week of December. It was the season to devour empanadas, eat rosca de reyes, and listen to the fireworks exploding late at night. He was hoping to drink all the way through the posadas—he’d work off the calories in January. It was not the month to be chasing after murderers”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“López says the living hold on to ghosts. You made a haunted house out of your own flesh and bones.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“He was attuned to Montserrat’s phases, like memorizing an almanac and knowing if it was a gibbous or waxing moon without having to glance at the sky.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Tristán, greedily delighting in the opportunities his eroding shyness afforded him, had decided Montserrat’s earnest affection was not as enticing as miniskirts and plunging necklines.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Do you want to wait a few more decades until I can’t masticate my own food? ’Cause I’ll love you until then and feed you pureed prunes, but it would be a shame to start living together at eighty-nine and die of a heart attack the first time we have sex.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“She had been a pretty girl when she was young, but the years had corroded her easy beauty. What was left was a hard shell. It reminded Montserrat a little of Ewers’s look. He’d had that trace of resentment in his mouth as if something had been denied to him. A hunger, in the pit of their bellies.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“The whiter you were, the better. Even his “exotic” looks were only allowed on television because he had the correct mix of facial features, height, and skin tone. Yet he still stared at Montserrat in surprise and then at Urueta.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“1994 was going to begin on a downward spiral.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Editing rooms all looked like war zones unless a client was poking their head around.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“He wondered if, underneath layers of cheap paper and colorful ink, there were symbols of old magic, like corpses bricked into walls.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Mercado de Sonora.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Her meeting with Alma had, despite her indifferent façade in front of Tristán, jolted her a little.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“She supposed it hadn’t been that hard for Hitler’s followers to make it to America, not with greedy people willing to harbor them. Some of those mass murderers must have been flush with Jewish loot, with the belongings of the poor Romani they tried to exterminate, and the coins stolen from the corpses of disabled people. And so they’d come to the Americas, to be greeted with open arms by Perón and others like him.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“She did this because she didn’t fancy Ewers’s complicated runes, but also because magic, from what Ewers seemed to be saying, was an exercise in belief and the self.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“There is a common phrase I grew up with in Mexico: “mejorar la raza.” It translates to “better the race” and means you should marry whiter, more European-looking people, so, although there was no Wilhelm Friedrich Ewers in the 1950s in Mexico City, he might not have been unwelcome.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Let’s try another route. How about power, Montserrat? The power you’ve craved since you were a little girl, when they mocked you and shoved you and called you dirty names. The power you lack when those men sneer at you and ignore your contributions, your brilliance. The power to make the whole world see you.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Montserrat, let’s talk about us. I am willing to alleviate your financial woes and provide you with the other trinkets you desire, including Tristán. The love of your life, am I correct?” “I can get a raise and go on dates on my own, asshole,” she said, unable to maintain a composed tone against the mockery of his voice.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“No, it’s bigger than that,” Tristán insisted. “The more you become immersed in his books, in his magic, the more you become immersed in him. You don’t realize it, but sometimes you sound like you admire the guy. He was clever, creative, and determined, right?”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Now you can be a stubborn coward and live the rest of your life inside my guest room, or maybe you can help me put an end to Ewers’s spell.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“don’t shave my armpits, either. Are you going to tell Cosmopolitan to arrest me?” she replied, sitting up and shaking her head, as if getting rid of a kink in her neck.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Abel Urueta would get a sunburn if he stood at the beach for three minutes. Alma: same story. The elites in Mexico are proud of their European roots.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate

“Then came all the mutts of the world. That’s what he called them. The ‘mutts.’ The mixed people of Mexico. And then all the other races that made him shudder; each level of the pyramid was carefully color-graded.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Silver Nitrate