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Quote by Elaine Castillo

“What Hero could tell before she could tell anything else was that the movie [Terminator 2] took place in California, even if supposedly it took place in the future; she recognized California, the quality of sunlight on the people’s faces, the way its particular weight flattened and loosened people’s expressions.”

Quote by Elaine Castillo

Book:America Is Not the Heart
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America Is Not the Heart

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Elaine Castillo

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“Maybe, all alone, your story is on the small side. Most stories, taken by themselves, can feel that way. Like how an island that stands alone in a huge sea can look small. But if you stop looking at that one island and instead see how it's part of a whole archipelago, how the Pacific is filled with islands, then you might start to notice how big your story actually is. How much space and time and how many connections it covers.”

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“This southern city which seems only peripherally and accidentally America. This city which was once an outpost of Spain and once a region of Mexico. This city webbed with boulevards bearing the names of Spanish psychotics and saints. This incomplete city which seems to have no recognizable past, no ground that could be called unassailably sacred. This incomplete city that speaks of an impending terror.”

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“Now the wind begins to stir. They call this a Santa Ana, this wind which comes from the desert beyond the city, unpredictable and fierce, scenting the irradiated night with sagebrush and sand. She takes pleasure in the way it howls through its broken Spanish mouth, shattering leaves, breaking the branches of trees, etching its insistent southern story in a braille of twisted fronds. She enjoys the stillness in the mornings after the winds have passed, after the winds have ripped the palms, made confetti of the pale listless fronds, dragged their anemic sun-drained fronds to the ground. Then the city has been purified. A sense of salt lingers. The calligraphy is obvious. At such moments she understands exactly what God is saying. His voice rises with the clarity of church bells above the debris. And God is saying the party is over.”

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“What happened in New York and Washington and abroad seemed to impinge not at all upon the Sacramento min. I remember being taken to call upon a very old woman, a rancher's widow, who was reminiscing (the favored conversational mode in Sacramento) about the son of some contemporaries of hers. 'That Johnston boy never did amount to much,' she said. Desultorily, my mother protested: Alva Johnston, she said, had won the Pulitzer Prize, when he was working for The New York Times. Our hostess looked at us impassively. 'He never amounted to anything in Sacramento,' she said.”

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Book:Slouching towards Bethlehem
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“In these days of living in a dry land that wants fire, we need to find words, or burn. 'I dreamt of rain last night.' Mai stood near my skin, on the bank of the American River, her flesh wet with simplicity. The scent of star thistle mixed with river mud. ' I met people in my dreams who had never known the inside of a lotus flower. Ever.' In the center of each word another word unfolded. Our ankles cold from the river. Her hands trembled. Bewildered fingers. Be careful around those who claim to know the history of fire and yet remain unafraid of rain.”

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