Quotes from Her Body and Other Parties

“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I took a step toward her. "It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right," I said. "It is my right to be unsociable and it is my right to be unpleasant to be around. Do you ever listen to yourself? This is crazy, that is crazy, everything is crazy to you. By whose measure? Well, it is my right to be crazy, as you love to say so much. I have no shame. I have felt many things in my life, but shame is not among them." The volume of my voice caused me to stand on my tiptoes. I could not remember yelling like this, ever. "You may think that I have an obligation to you but I assure you that us being thrown together in this arbitrary arrangement does not cohesion make. I have never had less of an obligation to anyone in my life, you aggressively ordinary woman.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had her hauled her off to a sanatorium. I don’t know what deviant pleasure she asked for, though I desperately wish I did. What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it?”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“Stories can sense happiness and snuff it out like a candle.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“(If you are reading this story out loud, force a listener to reveal a devastating secret, then open the nearest window to the street and scream it as loudly as you are able.)”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I called her two days later, never having believed more firmly in love at first sight, in destiny. When she laughed on the other end of the line, something inside of me cracked open, and I let her step inside.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I was a creature so small, trapped in some crevice of an indifferent universe.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness. Pray that one day, you will spin around at the water’s edge, lean over, and be able to count yourself among the lucky.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I understood that knowledge was a dwarfing, obliterating, all-consuming thing, and to have it was to both be grateful and to suffer greatly.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“(If you read this story out loud, please use the following voices:
ME: as a child, high-pitched, forgettable; as a woman, the same.
THE BOY WHO WILL GROW INTO A MAN, AND BE MY SPOUSE: robust with serendipity.
MY FATHER: kind, booming; like your father, or the man you wish was your father.
MY SON: as a mall child, gentle, sounding with the faintest of lisps; as a man, like my husband.
ALL OTHER WOMEN: interchangeable with my own.)”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I keep thinking I can see the virus blooming on the horizon like a sunrise. I realize the world will continue to turn, even with no people on it. Maybe it will go a little faster.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“A feeling settles over me—a one-beer-deep feeling, a no-more-skittering-feet-after-the-trap-snaps feeling.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“The sixty-fifth story,” Henson whispers into her ear, “is about a world that watches you and me and everyone. Watches our suffering like it is a game. Can’t stop. Can’t tear themselves away. If they could stop, we could stop, but they won’t, so we can’t.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“Not all of us can deal with the illumination that comes with justice.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“Autumn was the worst time to go into the mountains, I thought to myself. To drive into the wilderness when it writhed and gasped for air seemed foolish.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“And there was nothing in my eyes. Or even worse -- nothingness. Not the presence of a thing but the presence of a non-thing.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“You never live with a woman, you live inside of her, I overheard my father say to my brother once, and it was, indeed, as if, when peering into the mirror, you were blinking out through her thickly fringed eyes.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“No limpid daughter slept in the backseat; no strange teenage girl sat next to me, stewing in her own nightmarish conciousness. (And isn't that how you become tender, vulnerable? The tissue-softening marination of your own mind, the quicksand of mental indulgence?)”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“That night, I wash myself. The silky suds between my legs are the color and scent of rust, but I am newer than I have ever been.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I took a step toward her. 'It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right,' I said.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“When you think about it, stories have this way of running together like raindrops in a pond. Each is borne from the clouds separate, but once they have come together, there is no way to tell them apart.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I had no self-control, but tomorrow I would relinquish control and everything would be right again.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“If there were any justice in the world, this oyster would grab hold of my tongue and choke me dead.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“But without ego," Diego said, "your writing is just scribbles in a journal. Your art is just doodles. Ego demands that what you do is important enought that you be given money to work on it." He gestured to the hotel around us. "It demands that what you say is important enough that it be published or shown to the world.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“And what is through the forest?”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I do not even struggle to speak. The spark of words dies so deep in my chest, there is not even space to mount them on an exhale.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“I will look where her eyes would be. I will open my mouth to ask but then realize the question has answered itself: by loving me when I did not love her, by being abandoned by me, she has become immortal. She will outlive me by a hundred million years; more, even. She will outlive my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter, and the earth will teem with her and her kind, their inscrutable forms and unknowable destinies.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

“If this child is part of The Plan, then The Plan was that I would be raped. If this child is not part of The Plan, then my rape was a violation of The Plan, in which case The Plan is not a Plan at all, but a Polite fucking Suggestion”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.