Important Quotations Explained
1. “I
have always thought you had a wonderful way with words,” he said.
“You don't need to go fishing for big words in the dictionary. You
are poetic, mi'ija.” . . . “Well, thank you for the compliment,”
I said, “but that's the biggest bunch of hogwash, what you said.
When did I ever say anything poetic?” “Washing hogs is poetic,”
he said.
2. Turtle
shook her head. “Bean trees,” she said, as plainly as if she had
been thinking about it all day. We looked where she was pointing.
Some of the wisteria flowers had gone to seed, and all these wonderful
long green pods hung down from the branches. They looked as much
like beans as anything you'd ever care to eat. “Will you look at
that,” I said. It was another miracle. The flower trees were turning
into bean trees.
3. Lou
Ann shuddered. “That door's what gets me. The way they made the
door handle. Like a woman is something you shove on and walk right
through. I try to ignore it, but it still gets me.” “Don't ignore
it, then,” I said. “Talk back to it. Say, 'You can't do that number
on me, you shit-for-brains.' . . . What I'm saying is you can't
just sit there, you got to get pissed off.”
4. The
whole Tucson Valley lay in front of us, resting in its cradle of
mountains. The sloped desert plain that lay between us and the city
was like a palm stretched out for a fortuneteller to read, with
its mounds and hillocks, its life lines and heart lines of dry stream
beds.
5. It
didn't seem to matter to Turtle, she was happy where she was. .
. . She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup
song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans
and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the
rest. And me. I was the main ingredient.
