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Justin Torres

Justin Torres Books

Novelist

Justin Torres is an American novelist born in 1980. His works are celebrated for their profound social insight and depiction of Latin American life in the United States. Torres' debut novel, 'We the Kings,' won the National Book Award in 2012, propelling him into the spotlight as a prominent author.

We the Animals

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“I totally bristle against words like "dysfunction" or "abuse."”

Abuse Dysfunction

Author:Justin Torres

“I don't think that any family has a function. I just think that a family is. It just exists.”

Thinking Function

Author:Justin Torres

“As you become an adult, shame gets introduced and reintroduced constantly to you. So where something that, to a child, just is what it is - you know, your father's violent but he loves you and that's just the way it is - later on you realize that this is like different, shameful, blah blah blah.”

Knows Way Children Different Father Realizing Love You Adults Shame Violent Shameful Blah

Author:Justin Torres

“Sometimes I would be very upset because my memories are very murky from my childhood, but there are certain emotional memories or emotional truths that are painful, and things that I know to be the case and I had to nail them down, and that was difficult.”

Knows Sometimes Would Be Certain Difficult Memories Cases Childhood Emotional Down And Painful Upset Nails

Author:Justin Torres

“Animals don't think in terms of victims and villains, or good and bad, or evil, or shame.”

Thinking Evil Term Animal Shame Victim Villain Good And Bad

Author:Justin Torres

“Shame doesn't exist in the animal kingdom. It's a human conception.”

Humans Animal Shame Kingdoms Conception Animal Kingdom

Author:Justin Torres

“Everybody’s got rights. A man tied to a bed got rights. A man down in a dungeon got rights. A little screaming baby got rights. Yeah, you got rights. What you don’t got is power.”

Men Littles Rights Baby Bed Yeah Tied Dungeons Screaming Babies

Book:We the Animals

Source: We the Animals

“What we gotta do is, we gotta figure out a way to reverse gravity, so that we all fall upward, through the clouds and sky, all the way to Heaven.”

Way Fall Heaven Sky Figures Clouds Gravity Reverse

Book:We the Animals

Source: We the Animals

“This is your heritage,' he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of tenement buildings in Spanish Harlem, and projects in Red Hook, and dance halls, and city parks, and about how his own Paps, how he had beat him, how he taught him to dance, as if we could hear Spanish in his movements, as if Puerto Rico was a man in a bathrobe, grabbing another beer from the fridge and raising it to drink, his head back, still dancing, still steeping and snapping perfectly in time.”

“We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful — little animals, clawing at what we needed.”

Littles Animal Needed Frightened Hitting Vengeful

Book:We the Animals

Source: We the Animals

About the Author

Born: 1980
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 10

Related Topics

Animal Knows Shame Childhood Littles Men Thinking Way Abuse Adults

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

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