“I have already told you Father, more than once: I’m not going to subject myself to a husband chosen for me, I’m not going to bury myself in some planter’s kitchen, and I’m not going to be a servant to some doctor or lawyer in Ilhéus. I want to live my own life. When I finish school at the end of the year, I want to go to work in an office”

“The devil has taken possession of everybody in Ilhéus. All they think about is money and bigness. They’re on the road to hell. Things are going to start happening…”

“He wanted her to be as well dressed as the richest lady in Ilhéus; fine clothes would erase her past and hide the stove burns of her arms. But the fine clothes rarely left the closet”

“...it is a very risky thing for anyone to go about proclaiming the truth simply because he finds himself in possession of concrete documentary proofs or on the evidence of his own eyes, which is always overestimated.”

“I believe that she has the kind of magic that causes revolutions and promotes great discoveries. There’s nothing I enjoy more than to observe Gabriela in the midst of a group of people. Do you know what she reminds me of? A fragrant rose in a bouquet of artificial flowers.”

“If you’re going to need me, even if it’s just to yell at, I’m going to stay right here.”“No, I want to take a shower. I’m not about to if you stay out there.”“Excuse me, but-huh? Then there will be two doors between you and me.”Some of the blood stayed in my cheeks as I found myself spluttering, “But you’ll know I’m taking a shower!”“You just told me you were going to!”

“I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.”