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Quote by Graciliano Ramos

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Vidas Secas

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Graciliano Ramos

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“No one is ever going to understand. If it ever comes out, everyone’s just going to think I’m crazy. That I’m young and I don’t know what I’m talking about. That I’m a victim and my feelings are all a result of my trauma. I think that’s what hurts the most. I lived through all of it. I saw and felt and experienced more in one Summer than I think most people experience their entire lives, but in the end? I’m just a girl who no one will ever understand. There’s so much about me that will never be the same.”

“She doesn’t mean to make me feel like a freak, not on purpose. It’s when she says I’m drawn to you, because you’re a strong man, like Caleb. When she says I kissed you because sex is the way I’ve been conditioned to get my way, that it’s all psychological, and it’s all because Caleb fucked with my head. I can’t stand it. I can’t have everything I feel, reduced to a textbook description that fits me, and millions of other broken idiots. More than that, I can’t stand thinking that maybe…she’s right. Maybe I don’t really love Caleb, maybe my brain made it up so I wouldn’t kill myself or feel so scared and alone. Maybe I’ll accept that one day and I won’t be able to stop having nightmares. Maybe I’ll never trust another emotion I ever have again. Who’s going to love a girl like that, Reed? Who’s ever going to love a freak like me?” She collapsed onto her bed and rolled into a ball, crying and rocking.”

“And even though it was ridiculously childish, in the end I had to call myself a faggot, which really annoyed me, because 1. I don't think that word should ever be used by anyone, let alone me, and 2. As it happens, I am not gay, and furthermore, 3. Chuck Parson made it out like calling yourself a faggot was the ultimate humiliation, even though there's nothing at all embarrassing about being gay.”

“She was a very kind woman and she was always doing things for people. And she was always quite sure she knew the best thing to do. What they thought about it wouldn’t have mattered. I had an aunt like that. Very fond of seed cake herself and she used to bake seed cakes for people and take them to them, and she never troubled to find out whether they liked seed cake or not.”