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Magical Realism Quotes

Browse 287 quotes about Magical Realism.

Magical Realism Quotes

“Emilia stood on the edge of the old cemetery, her breath mingling with the mist. She had come here out of desperation, out of longing for something she couldn’t even name." Chapter 1”

MysteryLonelinessSeekingMysticismDesperationMagical RealismHope In The DarkGothic VibesOld CemeteriesUnfulfilled Longing
Book:Whispers of the Halloween Night: A Forbidden Love with Dark Secrets Beneath the Full Moon
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“In the place Calliope had bled, a trail of corn sprouted behind her. She picked the two tallest corn shoots then sat beside two large, smooth stone metates for grinding. From within her husk rebozo, she pulled a mano, shucked the corn, laid it on the altar, and with the mano in both hands, she began moving with the weight of her whole body, the strength of her shoulders and back pressing down through her arms, back and forth, shearing, until the corn became a fine yellow powder. The Ancients sang her on as she worked. When the Earth has had enough, she will shake her troubles off. She will shake her troublemakers off. She scooped this and mashed it into the butter of her hands. Rolled it into a ball, flattened it again. Shaped and shaped until the corn grew into a child, who sprang from the stone of her hands, laughing. For she was finished, and sank into the earth, solid, hardened, at peace. And as her corn-made child ran from the mound to the grass below, the spirits intoned. The Earth has all the power she needs. When she decides to use her power, you will know.”

MythologyMagical RealismDystopian FictionLatinx LiteratureApocalyptic FictionIndigenous LiteratureSouthwestern American CultureCreation Story
Book:Trinity Sight
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“A shock of light. Unbelievable light. Blood orange swallowing the Albuquerque evening. A pulling in, taking back, reclaiming something stolen. Halfway home from her Saturday-morning lecture, Calliope Santiago drove across the river toward West Mesa and the Sleeping Sisters, ancient cinder-cone volcanoes in the distance marking the stretch of desert where she lived. Only now she could see no farther than two feet ahead of her from the blinding light, the splotches in her eyes bursting like bulbs in an antique camera. She blinked, not sure what she was seeing. She meant to cover her eyes. Meant to shield her sight.”

MythologyMagical RealismLatinx LiteratureIndigenous Literature
Book:Trinity Sight
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“The rocks pummeled her belly. Something rose in her throat and when she tried to speak, from her mouth she dislodged a rock. She was made of rocks. She couldn’t move from the fossilized casing she’d once called her body. Heat crackled nearby. A conversation wove through the fire. A child’s sweaty body curled at her lap, chest rhythms of breathing, up and down, pressing against her. 'I didn’t want to believe it was happening again.”

MythologyMagical RealismLatinx LiteratureIndigenous Literature
Book:Trinity Sight
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“I landed on the roof of the hospital with a soft thud. The city was beautiful at night with all its lights on. Somewhere out there was Ryan, pacing the streets, hurt and angry, not understanding. I didn’t understand it, either. It was an abstract, somehow, a theory, this love. I loved everything. This city, my story, the Norns, Thor, Odin and the writer. I loved the einherjar, the battles, the books and my sisters. I loved it all to the point of my heart breaking. I loved it all for its beauty. So maybe I was capable of falling in love, after all. I was in love with the illusion. The stories intertwining underneath it all. In love with how it all came together to create an ongoing tale. In love with the fiction.”

LoveAdventureMythologyMetaphysicalMagical RealismValkyrie
Book:The End of Immortality
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“It’s funny,” Peter mused out loud. “With you, I feel like I am in this pocket in the world. As if nothing can reach us here. We have this little place to ourselves. When we are here, we are all there is. Just you and me, our little chosen world in the world with nothing to disturb us.” I pulled the fleece blanket tighter to me. The fire had nearly died out and a chill crept into the air. I looked longingly at my clothes scattered on the floor and table but I was too lazy to reach for it. Peter turned his face and looked at me, as I lay nuzzled close with my head on his arm. “Just a story,” I offered. “Yes,” he nodded. “Just a story.”

LoveMythologyMetaphysicalMagical RealismValkyrie
Book:The End of Immortality
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“Even now, after all this time, I remember the heavy scent of smoke and mead in the air. I remember the glints from the hundreds of golden shields on the walls and the ceiling. I remember the look of pride in my father’s eyes looking across the einherjar. I remember the rush of voices when Thor came once in a while and walked through the hall, Mjolnir hanging from his belt and his wealth of red hair lighting up the gloom like another coal burner. And this is my story. I, who have lived across time and space. I, who have jumped worlds and turned back on my choices. I, who gave up one identity for another. I understand now why I chose as I did. It wasn’t a random act or even an unknowing one. I had it all figured out all along. I knew where I was going and I chose every step of the way. The most common mistake is asking: “Why? Why did this happen to me? Why is it this way? Why can’t it be otherwise?” The problem isn’t the why. The problem is that it is turned outwards. Instead, ask: Why did I choose this? The answer will always be: Because this is how I get my thrills. Always. It all comes down to how you want your story to be.”

LoveMythologyMetaphysicalMagical RealismValkyrie
Book:The End of Immortality
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“As she relaxed, she started to notice something happening to the ingredients beneath her fingers. As she touched them, poking and prodding, kneading and caressing, the sensations she used to feel when she cooked started to return. She could feel the icy gurgle of the salt water against weather-barren black rock as she tossed a handful of local mussels into a pot of butter and white wine. She chopped a foraged mushroom and inhaled the damp, loamy soil of the forest spicy with ferns and dripping with cool humidity. She grinned, buoyed by a wave of relief. At least for tonight, her Technicolor senses were in full swing. With a satisfied sigh of contentment, she spooned Star's honey over local goat cheese on rounds of sunflower seed crackers, hearing all around her the nectar-drunk buzzing of the bees. It felt like pure joy to handle the ingredients.”

CookingGiftMagical Realism
Book:Recipe for a Charmed Life
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“A grown woman tasting a spoonful of Georgia's Mousse au Citron at a late afternoon lunch, then suddenly standing and announcing that she needed to reconcile with her estranged sister before it was too late. She'd hastened away, leaving her coat, one hundred euros to pay the bill, and the mostly uneaten mousse at the table. After devouring Georgia's beet and goat cheese tart one bitter winter evening, an American man with an engagement ring nestled on top of a slice of Georgia's cherry clafoutis looked across the table at his girlfriend and said later that he could suddenly see clearly that she was not the love of his life. He'd hastened back to the kitchen to remove the ring from the dessert where it was waiting to be served at the right moment. They left the restaurant with the ring in his pocket and his girlfriend in tears. There had been others. Many others, now that she thought of it. It had been a bit of a joke among the kitchen staff, that Georgia's dishes could cause more breakups and engagements and family feuds and reconciliations than the restaurant had ever seen. She'd never really put it all together before, but now that she thought of it... "I think my cooking might give people clarity somehow," Georgia said in surprise.”

CookingGiftClarityRealizationMagical Realism
Book:Recipe for a Charmed Life
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“UNREQUITED LOVE: Look, you see me, a lonely girl having a drink. What do you do? LOST: Avoid eye contact at all costs? UNREQUITED LOVE: Oh come on, don’t you ever randomly flirt and find yourself falling in love with attractive young women? LOST: I’ve forgotten how. UNREQUITED LOVE: How peculiar. LOST: (Struggles, trying to find the right words.) No…I mean I did once, but I’ve forgotten most things about love I guess. It just comes with the territory of losing your heart. UNREQUITED LOVE: Wait. (Beat.) You lost your heart? LOST: Yeah um...I lost my heart about a year ago. Filed a police report and everything, but they haven’t had any luck finding it. UNREQUITED LOVE: But without a heart, how can you- LOST: Love? I can’t. UNREQUITED LOVE: Can you remember what love feels like? LOST: (Shrugs.) Vaguely, but for the most part I don’t remember much about it. Like when couples hold hands, I don’t understand why they do that. UNREQUITED LOVE: Must make for some lonely nights.”

RomanceMagical RealismComedy HumorStage Play
Book:Lost and Found: a stage play
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“UNREQUITED LOVE: Some days my body feels empty and I feel like an idiot. To care for someone with every inch of your soul, and then find out they couldn’t care less about you... It’s like being slowly stabbed in the chest by someone who enjoys murdering the innocent. LOST: But you always seem so happy. UNREQUITED LOVE: There’s only so much you can’t feel.”

RomanceMagical RealismComedy HumorStage Play
Book:Lost and Found: a stage play
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“Our deepest secrets are nothing but unsung songs, Lyra." Palmyra would always repeat this to Lyra at every opportunity. "And certain vegetables, Palmyra would repeat to Lyra at every opportunity, "when held in the hand of the cook, can just pick these secrets up and listen to them being silently sung.”

FictionFoodTrainingCookingKitchenVegetablesAdviseMagical RealismSurreal Quotes
Book:Lyra's Kitchen: A Culinary Chronicle of Simmering Secrets
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“Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life.”

NovelMagical RealismSurrealism
Book:The Line
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“In the semi-darkness, Tom thought he saw faces-- or were they masks?-- that seemed to be covered in feathers or fur. And there was a summery scent of sun-ripened fruit; of night-blooming flowers; of new-baked bread; and frying mushrooms, and bilberry wine, and sandalwood, and cedar, and musk; and fresh-laundered sheets all wild from the wind. Now he could hear music, too; the sound of flutes and fiddles and distant voices raised in song; the soft, persistent rhythms of drums; the distant chirp of silver bells.”

MusicUrban FantasyMarketplaceMagical RealismScents
Book:The Moonlight Market
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“Magical realism is a rain of flowers falling during a funeral, no one asking why. It is finding a dull reference to a non-existent country in an old encyclopedia, and then finding an explanation which leads to a further secret deeper in. It's a bridge bursting into fire after you cross. In pure form it is never explained, which means that just possibly it is not even unnatural.”

BeautifulMagical RealismMagical ThinkingBeautiful Thinking
Book:The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing
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“Some years ago I had a conversation with a man who thought that writing and editing fantasy books was a rather frivolous job for a grown woman like me. He wasn’t trying to be contentious, but he himself was a probation officer, working with troubled kids from the Indian reservation where he’d been raised. Day in, day out, he dealt in a concrete way with very concrete problems, well aware that his words and deeds could change young lives for good or ill. I argued that certain stories are also capable of changing lives, addressing some of the same problems and issues he confronted in his daily work: problems of poverty, violence, and alienation, issues of culture, race, gender, and class... “Stories aren’t real,” he told me shortly. “They don’t feed a kid left home in an empty house. Or keep an abusive relative at bay. Or prevent an unloved child from finding ‘family’ in the nearest gang.” Sometimes they do, I tried to argue. The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath. He frowned, dismissing this foolishness, but his wife was more conciliatory. “Write down the names of some books,” she said. “Maybe we’ll read them.” I wrote some titles on a scrap of paper, and the top three were by Charles de lint – for these are precisely the kind of tales that Charles tells better than anyone. The vital, necessary stories. The ones that can change and heal young lives. Stories that use the power of myth to speak truth to the human heart. Charles de Lint creates a magical world that’s not off in a distant Neverland but here and now and accessible, formed by the “magic” of friendship, art, community, and social activism. Although most of his books have not been published specifically for adolescents and young adults, nonetheless young readers find them and embrace them with particular passion. I’ve long lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people from troubled backgrounds say that books by Charles saved them in their youth, and kept them going. Recently I saw that parole officer again, and I asked after his work. “Gets harder every year,” he said. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.” He stopped me as I turned to go. “That writer? That Charles de Lint? My wife got me to read them books…. Sometimes I pass them to the kids.” “Do they like them?” I asked him curiously. “If I can get them to read, they do. I tell them: Stories are important.” And then he looked at me and smiled.”

FantasyChildhoodBooksMythUrban FantasyMagical RealismFolklorePower Of StoriesMythic FictionCharles De LintTroubled Backgrounds
Author:Terri Windling
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