Raquel Quotes

Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day," Raquel said firmly. "And I know myself well enough to know how I act around cookies.

Lend.” “Lend?” Raquel asked. “Yes, as in, lend me your self.” He shimmered into Raquel again. “Why not Borrow?” I asked. “Better yet, Steal?

How did you learn all this?" Vic sighed. "See, while you spend all your time making out with Balthazar, and Raquel stays holed up with her art projects, and Ranulf's off studying his Norse myths again, i do something else. Something crazy. Something strange. I call it 'talking to other people.' Through this miraculous process, I am sometimes able to learn facts about two or three other human beings in a single day. Scientists plan to study my method." ~Vic

Everyone is lonely," Ranulf said, but he smiled. "We have to remember that life is to be lived one day at a time. You cannot worry about past or future. Happiness is in the now." Raquel laughed. "Vic has totally brainwashed you.

I have never bought into the idea that blood is thicker than water. Love and respect are meant to be earned from our children, our spouses, our families, and our friends.

When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.

Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.

Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation.

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

You can't fake listening. It shows.

I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.

Well, that was fabulous. Way to be cryptic and a traitor, Raquel. “Looks like Raquel joined Team Force Evie to Do Supernatural Crap.

A mother isn’t the person who births you; it’s the person who rears you and shows you love.

Support and encouragement are found in the most unlikely places.

And the sun took a step back, the leaves lulled themselves to sleep and autumn was awakened.

The things that come to us easily, our propensities, are carried on a deep subconscious level into our next life. There are no coincidences.

Good luck trying to force Evie to do anything else once she has made up her mind. She is the definition of a stubborn, headstrong teenager.” “And you love me for it.” “I do.

The worst was relizing that I’d lost him for nothing because he’d been rght about all of it-- vampires, my parents, everything. He’d told me my parents lied. I yelled at him for it. He forgave me. He told me vampires were killers. I told him they weren’t, even after one stalked Raquel. He told me Charity was dangerous. I didn’t listen, and she killed Courtney. He told me vampires were treacherous, and did I get the message? Not until my illusions had been destroyed by my parents’ confession.

Porque el dolor de un corazón roto pasa, pero el saber que dejaste que alguien te hiciera olvidar lo que vales y te pisotee se queda contigo por siempre.

Re-forming after the chaos,” I said, remembering Raquel’s words. “Choosing what we’ll do with how things are now, who we’ll be in this new world where the only magic left is what we make ourselves.

Lend and I certainly didn't start off on the right foot"-only Raquel would refer to Lend punching her and then us imprisoning him in an IPCA cell and interrogating him as being the "wrong foot"- "but he's always been good to you,and I have no doubt you two will be able to work this out.

You wonderful girl. I’ve missed you so much.” “Well, now that we’re both unemployed fugitives, think of how much time we’ll have to hang out!

For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.

How?" I had seen it with my own eyes, but I still didn't believe it. Then something struck me. "Take off your shirt!" "I'm not that kind of guy!" He frowned thoughtfully. "On second thought, why not?" I blushed angrily and looked at Raquel. "What is he? I don't see anything!" "He's not 'anything'.Just a talented boy." "Then how did he make a door? How did he get through the Paths?" "Wait,so am I allowed to put my shirt back on? Or did you want me to remove my pants,too?" Lend and I joined forces in a dark glare. "Only if you want me to vomit," I snapped.

I wish she’d said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can’t hide from it, not even here.

Latinos are here to stay. As citizen Raquel, I'm proud to be Latina.

What were you thinking,sending that rabid monkey child to my school?" I shouted into my communicator. "Beg pardon?" Raquel asked. "Jack.My school.The girls' locker room. Ring any bells? If Carlee hadn't sworn to my ogre of a gym teacher that Jack was neither my boyfriend nor my brother, I probably would have been suspended!" "Your gym teacher is an ogre?" "Focus!If I get suspended,my grades take a hit. If my grades take a hit, I might not get into Georgetown. And I will get into Georgetown." "I'm pleased to see you finally taking ownership of your education. And I'm sorry about Jack;I asked him to contact you discreetly." "That boy wouldn't know discreet if it tap--danced on his stupid blond head." "Still,if this discreet were tap dancing,it wouldn't be very discreet,now, would it?

While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.

...being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.

In reality, Eduardo hoped the mask would make him appear vulnerable and self conscious, like a wounded animal these stupid women would fight each other over to mend.

My body is the shape I live in and it shapes the way I live.

The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.

Women destroy me. I allow them to.

This thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.

We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.

We travel with the same clan over and over again, from one life to the next, until some ultimate purpose is fulfilled and we no longer need to return.

Our identities are as fluid as our personal experiences are diverse.

If it weren’t for her setting me free, I may still be a caged bird today, holding my own daughter captive on a shit-laden perch.

Who knew better than Raquel that nothing lasts. Hope fades. And love... love hurts.

Nobody, she felt, understood her--not her mother, not her father, not her sister or brother, none of the girls or boys at school, nadie--except her man.

Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?

Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.

Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.

Tú eres... mi bruja. La chica que me hechizó, que me hace querer ser diferente, intentar cosas nuevas que asustan, pero que, por ti, valen la pena.

Even the juncture in history and the zeitgeist we live in is something we choose, setting the scene for the spiritual fodder we need to grow and achieve deeper elevation of our souls.

Listen kid, it’s just you and me now, so let’s help each other out. Always be honest with me, and show me how to be the mother and father I never had. I’ll make a mess of things sometimes, and I’m sorry in advance, but I’ll try. My word is bond.

More than anything, this place feels familiar. I bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our bodies and minds. Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation. I quietly thank this ancestor of mine for surviving the trip so that I could one day return.

And then I picked up the nearest object-a shoe-and threw it at Jack's head. "What are you doing in here, you little weasle?" He picked up my shoe from where it had clattered to the floor after hitting the door behind him. "How do you walk in these heels?" He sat and removed his own shoe,trying to jam his foot into my purple sling-back. I stalked over and yanked it awway. "What are you, five? Answer my question." He looked up at me, impossibly big blue eyes wide with innocence. "I thought we were friends, after you made me strip and all." "I'm calling Raquel." "Fine,fine. I was just doing some reconnaissance?" "Reconnaissance?" "Oh,sorry,that's a big word,isn't it? It means I was scoping the scene, getting the-" "I know what it means! What,is IPCA investigating me now? Screw them, they can forget about any help from-" "Do you ever let anyone else finish a sentence?" He smiled at my glare, flashing his dimples. "That's more like it. You're much prettier when you aren't talking. True of most people, I've found. Anyhow, I needed to see the address Raquel gave me so that I could find it again.

Lately, Mami’s eyes have been so dark, I don’t like looking into them because I’m afraid I’ll fall in.

You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.

Come to think of it, maybe God is a He after all, because only a cruel force would create something this beautiful and make it inaccessible to most people.

There aren't any hard women, only soft men.

Tú me haces sentir y no quiero hacerlo.

White people--guys especially--always imagine another way because their paths have always been saturated with forks. For Abuela and mi mamá, there was no fork. No other way.

Do you want me to get Raquel? Or your jumpy boyfriend?

Jack waved cheerfully, got a running start,and did several roundoffs down the length of the hall. I turned to Raquel."i think he's broken." She heaved a don't I know it sigh. "Jack's past isn't one that contributes to stability.But he's a good boy." He nearly got me disembowled by my gym teacher.Good boy he was not.

And there was this sweet-looking little old lady with her white hair in a bun and everything, the typical grandmother type, and she was swearing her head off. I guess Alzheimer's had brought out her inner sailor.

Hip-hop is storytelling.

This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.

The truth is usually left for us to hunt and gather independently, if we are so inclined.

Globalization by the way of McDonald’s and KFC has captured the hearts, the minds, and from what I can see through the window, the growing bellies of the folks here.

There are things in our blood that are just naturally passed down to us, whether we want to recognize them or not.

love connot be tore love can niether be broken love can never be lost

It's not important that we agree with each other, only that we understand each other.

The bottom line is, Gat bailed when I got hurt. The bottom line is, it was only a summer fling. The bottom line is, he might have loved Raquel. We lived too far apart, anywway. I never got an explanation. I just know he left me.

Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.

I think Dad wanted to feel the pain, to feel his body cry, an urgent reminder that he was still alive. I pretended not to notice.

Hip-hop...has been the proverbial key that’s opened the door for me to roam this breathtaking planet.

To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy.

We all have a childhood dream that when there is love, everything goes like silk, but the reality is that marriage requires a lot of compromise.

Time ceases to exist for you in bookstores, and I am not sitting by for three hours while you get hot over books you have no intention of buying.

Right now I am thinking of writing another cookbook. All cookbooks have a gimmick, and mine will be that it contains recipes that I have invented and named after famous people. Some of them are: Brisket of Brynner (very lean meat) Carson Casserole (it's got everything on it) Barbecued Walters Marinated Maude Roasted Rhoda King King Curry (it will feed about eight thousand people) Fricassee of Fonzi Pickled Rickles Raquel Relish Leftovers à la Gabors

Perhaps finding out that we carry New World history in our genes will transcend racial checkboxes altogether and enable Latino-Americans to rethink what America is supposed to look like.

Raquel walked over from where she’d been standing, talking with David, Arianna, and Cresseda. She beamed at the sight of Lend and me holding hands. “You did it, Evie! I am so happy.” I grinned, leaning my head on Lend’s shoulder. “Of course. If anyone needs more beauty sleep in this relationship, it’s me.

Because it’s a fucking disaster to be creative when you know you’re not Mozart or Keats. Dammit, I got tired of scratching around in my past. There’s nothing in me to justify the pretension of creativity. This came before anything, before you, before Raquel, this is a matter of my own emptiness, my awareness of my own limits, maybe my sterility. Does what I’m saying to you seem awful? Now you want to come along and sell me an illusion, which I don’t believe in but which does make me believe that either you’re a fool or you underestimate my intelligence. Why don’t you just leave me alone, so I can fill the emptiness in my own way? Let me see things for myself, learn if something can still grow in my soul, an idea, a faith, because I swear to you, Laura, my soul is more desolate than this rock landscape you see here… why?

I fall in love with Paraíso. It’s like a giant playground where I’m never scolded for running around recklessly, where I’m almost overwhelmed with the amount of attention and love I receive from Mami’s family. In New York, I’m invisible.

The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.

The gaping hole in her heart is amplified when she catches a glimpse of the strands of silver hair framing her once young face in the mirror.

If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess’s playground.

Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.

¿qué pasaría con la fortuna del padre de Leila, en caso de que ella no estuviera ni viva ni muerta?

Solo se vive una vez, y la compañía que nos procuremos en ese tiempo puede valer más que todo el oro del mundo.

With each breath, I am new. I’m a seed, I’m a flower, and then I’m a seed again. And that’s exactly how God made it work.

Who knows what tomorrow brings In a world where everyone lies..." Tupac

Os meus amigos ainda não têm dentes do siso. Ou então foram arrancados porque os maxilares não cresceram o suficiente. Os nossos corpos já nem têm espaço para os dentes do juízo.

Recordatorio: que te hayan tratado como una mierda no significa que lo seas.

It’s so easy for the person who’s done you wrong to forget, meanwhile you’re the one stuck with the lifelong trauma.

Pero eso de que una persona te deje de hablar porque ya se enteró de que te gusta, o que tengas que esperarte tres meses para dar un beso que los dos quieren porque si no te van a acusar de fácil, es horrible. De hecho, creo que las femmes fatales son tan tradicionales y aburridas como las que cocinan pastelitos y esperan al príncipe azul, porque a fin de cuentas también se dedican a ser un cliché del tamaño del mundo y a reprimirse solitas para ser lo que los fulanos esperan de ellas.

Alice’s razor-thin blond hair is what people in Santo Domingo call bueno, but I don’t understand how that kind of hair can be good. It doesn’t move at all, or ripple like the water in Boca Chica when I throw shells at it.

She looks like an empty shell of a woman with her soul hovering above her. We believe in spiritual guías in Santo Domingo. Hers is her own self. I can see Mami’s soul desperately trying to find its way back into her small body.

When you fall in love, when Love really does its worst, it gives you no cause. It swallows you whole. It allows no refusals. Like Jonah only after he had been inside the whale awhile, you may say, if asked, “Oh, this is why I am here.

But what if you are a smart girl in love? All because I was a book nerd didn’t mean, I didn’t feel, I didn’t want. Shylock had cried out in excess of pain, “If you prick me do I not bleed!” But a book nerd is not allowed to be human, to say “you make me melt” and still have her mind want something else entirely?

Başını öne salladı ve onun da benim kadar korktuğunu bildiğim halde, ben de ona yaslandım, bir an için onun babam olduğunu, hiç gücüm kalmadığında benim yerime güçlü durabilecek biri olduğunu hayal ettim. Raquel'in burada olmasını istiyordum. Lish'in de. Hiç tanımadığım annemin de. Ancak Lend'in babasının yeterli olduğunu düşünerek kendimi kandırdım. sy:111

How did you learn? To use the Paths, I mean?" His mouth twisted into an impish grin. "Don't let my good looks fool you. I'm terribly clever." I rolled my eyes. "Clearly. But you still shouldn't be abot to use te Paths." He shrugged, standing. "Watch and wait long enough, want something bad enough, and you can figure out a way to make it happen. I make a lot of things happen." Smiling enigmatically, he reached out a hand to my wall. "I'll pick you up later?" "I haven't agreed to anything!" I narrowed me eyes. "Of course," he said, distracted as he focused on the white lines snaking out to make a door. "So, I'll pick you up later, then." "No! Don't you listen to anything? Tell Raquel I'm not going to-" Before I could finish my sentence he walked through the faerie door, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "Girls are annoying." The wall formed again behind him, becoming the innocent recipient of my withering glare.Jack might look my age, but he was like a little kid on a sugar high-in need of a good spanking. Good heavens, that sounded creepy.

Traveling further ingrained my desire to connect to a place other than an island that is slightly older, in a New World way, than the United States, especially after I found characteristics of my face in the faces of the people in my global community.

Los seres humanos éramos como pequeños puzles. Los había de mayor o menor dificultad como había vidas felices e infelices. Los afortunados eran aquellos a los que la vida les brindaba la posibilidad de que toas las piezas encajaran a la perfección desde el principio y con un solo movimiento. Los desafortunados tropezaban una y otra vez hasta encontrar el hueco perfecto para encajar la pieza. Otros sencillamente, jamás logran terminar el puzle

When I was with him, I felt like a book worth reading all the way through again and again and again. Sure, he liked my cover. I wanted him to, but I wanted him to like everything else too. I imagined him buying the book, studying it, quoting it, memorizing his favorite parts. He’d keep it with him always, like a Bible, hold it sacred even when the cover fell off and the book became bent with age and use. Maybe, he’d be buried with it. That’s all I wanted.

Even more confused than before, I started backing up. I’d go around and get in through the kitchen; David and Raquel had to know what was going on. Unfortunately for all of us, that was when Lend came out the front door, immediately collapsed with a thunk that made me cringe, and—perfect—went completely transparent. The police officers stopped fighting, every eye glued on my boyfriend, now essentially invisible other than this T-shirt and flannel pajama pants. “Okay,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “No. This is unacceptable. I don’t care what the bleep is going on, we’re going to get it settled immediately or I swear I will give you all to the Dark Queen and let her feed on your dreams for the rest of eternity.” Every head turned my direction, their faces a portrait of shock and disbelief. “What, you’ve never seen a boy made of water before? Yawn. Go down to the pond—it’ll really blow your mind.” One close to the front—barrel-chested, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick mustache—shook his head as though trying to clear it. “Are you Evelyn Green?” “Sort of. Mostly. I mean, legally. Again, sort of.” He tried to look at me, but his eyes kept drifting back to Lend. “You’re under—We’re here to—Could you please come with us?” I rolled my eyes. “No, I couldn’t. You’re last place in a very long line of people who want me right now. Besides, I haven’t done anything.” “Actually,” said a painfully tall and thin officer with a voice that struggled between tenor and bass but really sounded like a dog with something caught in its throat, “you’re wanted for terrorism.” He shrugged apologetically. “We’re supposed to take you into NSA headquarters.” “I think you have the wrong acronym there,” I said. This had Anne-Whatever Whatever written all over it.

Raquel laughed, and David joined her. They sounded slightly manic. “You’re free now,” he said. “Of all of it,” she answered, and I looked up to see them locked in a gaze I’d previously only observed between actors on Easton Heights—one filled with all the things unspoken over the years, all the betrayals and fears and pain left behind in favor of overwhelming love. It was beautiful. Oh, who am I kidding, it was awkward as all heck and I didn’t have time for it. “Okay! So, you may have noticed Lend is in the kitchen.” “Mmm hmm,” Raquel answered, reaching up to smooth down a stray piece of David’s hair. “Yeah, that’d be the big faerie curse.” “Farie curse?” She actually turned toward me; David took both her hands in his. “Yup. Really funny one, too. See, any time Lend and I are in the same room or can see each other or could actually, you know, touch, he falls fast asleep.” “Oh,” Raquel frowned. “So I need your help. You know all the names of the IPCA controlled faeries, right?” She nodded, her frown deepening. “Well, it was a dark faerie curse, so I figure we need a dark faerie to undo it. So you call an Unseelie faerie, we give him or her a named command to break the curse, ta-da, we can double-date!” “Wait, who can double-date?” Lend asked. “I’ll let your dad tell you. So. Faerie?” Raquel heaved a sigh, along the lines of her famous things never get easier, do they? sign, and, boy, I agreed with her. “To be honest, I don’t know which court most of the faeries belong to.” “You don’t? How can you not know? It seems like pretty vital information to me. You know, ‘Are you a member of the evil court kidnapping humans and plotting world domination, or a member of the moderately less evil court who just wants to get the crap off the planet?’ sort of a survey when you get them.

Raquel? You coming?” “I honestly never thought I would see the light of day again.” “Aww, come on. With me on your side? Of course things worked out.” She tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. Thank you, Evie.” I threw my arms around her in a hug. “You don’t have to thank me.” “I really do. You wonderful girl. I’ve missed you so much.” “Well, now that we’re both unemployed fugitives, think of how much time we’ll have to hang out!” She laughed drily, and we walked with our arms around each other to the house. I opened the door and yelled, “Evie alert! Coming into the family room!” “You made it!” Lend shouted back. “Just a sex, I’ll go to the kitchen. Raquel’s with you?” “Yup!” “Good job! Jack and Arianna got back a couple of minutes ago.” I walked into the family room to find Arianna and Jack sitting on the couch, arguing. “But here would have been no point to you being there if it hadn’t been for my computer prowess.” “But your computer prowess wouldn’t have mattered if you couldn’t have gotten into the Center in the first place.” “Being a glorified taxi does not make you the bigger hero.” “Being a nerd who can tap on a keyboard or being able to navigate the dark eternities of the Faerie Paths . . . hmmm . . . which is a rarer and more valuable skill . . .” I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, kids, take it elsewhere. Raquel and I have work to do.” “Evie,” Raquel said. She was staring at Jack in horror. “Oh, that.” I waved a hand dismissively. “It’s all good. Jack’s been helping us.” “Don’t you remember how he tried to kill you?” Jack rolled his eyes. “Boring. We’ve all moved on.” “Really?” “Not really,” I said. “But he’s behaving. And everyone needs a glorified taxi now and then.” “Admit it: you all adore me.” Jack bowed dramatically as he left the room. Arianna smiled tightly at Raquel and left after him. Raquel collapsed onto the couch and closed her eyes. “You’re working with Reth and Jack? Have you lost your mind?” “Oh, that happened ages ago. But I’ve had to do a lot of rescuing lately, and those two come in handy.” “Do you trust them?” “No, we don’t,” Lend called from the kitchen.