"Other people's sex lives are a little like other people's holidays: you're glad they had fun but you weren't there and don't necessarily want to see the photos. At our age too much detail leads to a certain amount of mental whistling and staring at shoes, and there's also the problem of vocabulary. Scientific terms, though clinically accurate, don't really convey the heady dark intensity, etc., etc. and I'd like to avoid simile of metaphor -- valley, orchid, garden, that kind of thing. Certainly I have no intention of using a whole load of swear words. So I won't go into detail, except to say that it worked out pretty well for all concerned, with that pleasant sense of self-satisfaction, as if we'd discovered that we were still capable of performing a forward roll. Afterwards we lay in a tangle of limbs." (p. 71)
"I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night ….
Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone is carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders
That's why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day." (p. 73)
“They were playing the Persian game of tarof, a verbal tradition stressing exaggerated politeness and formality in interactions, a ritual filled with flowery flattery, endless displays of respect for the other, dramatic self-effacement, and indirect answers to unnecessary questions. Darya and Baba relished this communicative art, through Mina had spent years resisting it.” (p. 20)
“Mina had the germ of an idea: If she went back to Iran, she could figure out what her family had been, what they’d lost, what they’d gained. She could expel this sense of never belonging, feeling lost. She could “find herself,” like every character in every book she’d ever read about immigrants going back to the homeland.” (p. 59)
“Mina knew how to study and work very hard. She knew how to swing her legs on that hyphen, and on that hyphen she would stay, carrying memories of the one place from which she had come and the other place in which she must succeed. The hyphen was hers--a space small, potentially precarious. On the hyphen she would sit and on the hyphen she would stand and soon, like a seasoned acrobat, she would balance there perfectly, never falling, ever choosing either side over the other, content with walking that thin line.” (p. 67)
“This book was inspired by my father, who came to the United States from Panama in 1971 to go to college, and who has been here ever since. He’s made a life here, he’s become a citizen, and even though his story isn’t dramatic or spectacular, it’s important for the simple reason that it exists at all.”Some other quotes that I loved:
“They found other places to live. Places like Delaware. It’s cheaper than Pennsylvania. And no sales tax. We have all the Spanish supermarkets now, and the school district started those English programs. I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.
"I like it here. I started off as the manager, but now I own this building. Bought it out almost ten years ago after working jobs on the side, saving up. I got a good deal. The area is changing, though. A clash of cultures. I try to make this building like an island for all of us washed-ashore refugees. A safe harbor. I don’t let anyone mess with me. If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, I’m already there.” (p. 146)
“The only reason I’d come was because my dad thought he might need a translator. I told him, “You use English every day.” But my dad had argued that he didn’t know the language of cars. To him, everything had its own language--the language of breakfast, the language of business, the language of politics, and on and on. In Spanish he knew all the languages, for as long as he’d been speaking English, he believe he knew it was only in certain realms. He never talked about cars with anyone in English, he said. Therefore, he didn’t know the language. It was no use explaining to him that I didn’t exactly spend my days talking about cars with people, either. To him, I knew all the languages of English the way he did those of Spanish. And as proud as he was that I was so good at one, I think he was also ashamed that I wasn’t better at the other.” (p. 161)And so much so:
“Maybe it’s the instinct of every immigrant, born of necessity or of longing: Someplace else will be better than here. And the condition: if only I can get to that place.” (p. 286)
“The man sneered at me, called me dyaspora with the resentment those Haitians who cannot leave hold for those of us who can.” (p. 6)
“There are three Haitis--the country Americans know and the country Haitans know and the country I thought I knew.” (p. 11)And Gay says of herself:
“I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. I am a first generation American. My parents emigrated from Haiti quite some time ago but they instilled in my brothers and I a profound cultural identity and they’ve since returned to the island on a part time basis.”
“Our great realizations are slow dishes, but once they’re ready, they announce themselves as suddenly as an oven timer.” (p. 10)
“I’m an old camel now, but back then, sparks flew from my feet when I walked--you could light a cigarette if you wanted. I was known in the neighborhood.” (p. 213)From the acknowledgements:
“My first thanks are to my grandmother. She really was better than all of us. Then to my grandfather. A friend of mine once said, “You’re smarter than him, you’re more enlightened than him. But both of us can fit inside his left nut. Hard to argue.”Boris Fishman was born in Belarus and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. And yes, his work has appeared in the New Yorker.
