Quotes from Laura Esquivel

That's why it's important to keep your distance from people who have frigid breath. Just their presence can put out the most intense fire, with results we're familiar with. If we stay a good distance away from those people, it's easier to protect ourselves from being extinguished.

being able to listen to unrepeatable secrets, wishes, and desires wasn't as wonderful as it seemed...being aware of what other people felt at every moment would come to cause him a lot of headaches, and huge disappointments in love.

The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can't stop.

Todo se olvida en esta vida, todo pasa al recuerdo, todo acontecimiento deja de ser presente, pierde su valor y su significado.

Hay muchas maneras de poner a secar una caja de cerillos húmeda, pero puede estar segura de que tiene remedio

Gertrudis got on her horse and rode away. She wasn't riding alone--she carried her childhood beside her, in the cream fritters she had enclosed in a jar in her saddlebag

parecía que la única virtud de Mamá Elena era la de encontrar defectos.

Esa niña estaba destinada a perderlo todo para encontrarlo todo, porque solamente alguien que se vacía puede ser llenado de nuevo.

To the table or to bed, you must come when you are bid.

Carefully studying the delicate form of the doll, she was thinking how easy it was to wish for things as a child. Then nothing seemed impossible. Growing up, one realizes how many things one cannot wish for, the things that are forbidden, sinful. Indecent.

The time it took to prepare didn't matter, because there is no such thing as wasted time in the kitchen--rather that is where we go to recover lost time.

Generalmente, ésa es la manera en que se escribe la historia, a través de las versiones de los testigos presenciales, que no siempre corresponden a la realidad.

The sun light up a drop of dew The drop of dew soon dries You are the light of my eyes, my eyes I'm brought to life by you ...

You can feel the North. It takes hold of you, marks you. No matter how far you move from its center of gravity, you are invariably drawn to it by an invisible current, like water droplets to the earth, like a needle to a magnet, like blood to blood, desire to desire.

Y juró ante su tumba que ella nunca renunciaría al amor

durante su niñez Tita no diferenciaba bien las lágrimas de la risa de las del llanto. Para ella reír era una manera de llorar. De igual forma confundía el gozo del vivir con el de comer. No era fácil para una persona que conoció la vida a través de la cocina entender el mundo exterior.

El Poder Judicial siempre busca encontrar alguien que pague el delito cometido, pero no le interesa detener al que en verdad lo cometió.

One is never truly alone, even when our only company is our thoughts, because what are thoughts if not the memory of interactions with others?

Decidió darle utilidad al estambre en lugar de desperdiciarlo y rabiosamente tejió y lloró, y lloró y tejió, hasta que en la madrugada terminó la colcha y se la echó encima. De nada sirvió. Ni esa noche ni muchas otras mientras vivió logró controlar el frí

Mamá Elena opinaba que la palabra mamá sonaba despectiva, así que obligó a sus hijas desde niñas a utilizar la palabra «mami» cuando se dirigieran a ella.

a woman, silent, voiceless, a mere woman who didn't bear on her shoulders the enormous responsibility of building the conquest with her words. A woman, who, contrary to what would be expected, felt relief in reclaiming her condition of submission, for it was a much more familiar sensation to be an object at the service of men than to be a creator of destiny

Claro que lo sabía. Y claro que lo iba a considerar cuando tomara su decisión, la definitiva, la que determinaría todo su futuro

Maldita decencia! ¡Maldito manual de Carreño! Por su culpa su cuerpo quedaba destinado a marchitarse poco a poco, sin remedio alguno. ¡Y maldito Pedro tan decente, tan correcto, tan varonil, tan... tan amado! -Tita

You must of course take care to light the matches one at a time. If a powerful emotion should ignite them all at once they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see; and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost. The soul ever longs to return to the place from which it came, leaving the body lifeless. . . .