Justin Torres quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

Source : Justin Torres (2012). “We the Animals”, p.71, Granta Books

#Fall Quotes #Clouds Quotes #Sky Quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

#Beer Quotes #Men Quotes #Cities Quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

Source : Justin Torres (2012). “We the Animals”, p.45, Granta Books

#Animal Quotes #Hitting Quotes #Littles Quotes

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

Source : Source: www.motherjones.com

#Animal Quotes #Kingdoms Quotes #Shame Quotes

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

Source : Source: www.motherjones.com

#Animal Quotes #Thinking Quotes #Evil Quotes

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

Source : Source: www.motherjones.com

#Thinking Quotes #Function Quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

Source : Justin Torres (2012). “We the Animals”, p.96, Granta Books

#Baby Quotes #Men Quotes #Rights Quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

Source : Source: www.motherjones.com

#Memories Quotes #Emotional Quotes #Childhood Quotes

“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.”
-- Justin Torres

Source : "Justin Torres’ Hard-Knock Debut Novel". Interview with Tim Mcdonnell, www.motherjones.com. October 3, 2011.

#Children Quotes #Father Quotes #Love You Quotes

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

Source : Source: www.motherjones.com

#Dysfunction Quotes #Abuse Quotes