Quotes in the Book

My Favourite Quotes

Here are some of my favourite quotations that I have encountered while I was reading this book.  These quotes are extremely inspiring and astounding! They mean a lot to me and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did!

“Take care to chop the onion fine. To keep from crying when you chop it (which is so annoying!), I suggest you place a little bit on your head. The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can’t stop." (Esquivel 5)

“Despite the time that had passed since that evening, she remembered it perfectly: the sounds, the smells, the way her new dress had grazed the freshly waxed floor, the look Pedro gave her…That look!...It was then she understood how dough feels when it is plunged into burning oil. The heat that invaded her body was so real she was afraid she would start to bubble—her face, her stomach, her heart, her breasts—like batter…” (Esquivel 16)

“You don't have to think about love; you either feel it or you don't.” (Esquivel 18)

“During the funeral Tita really wept for her mother. Not for her castrating mother who had repressed Tita her entire life, but for the person who had lived a frustrated love. And she swore in front of Mama Elena’s tomb that come what may, she would never renounce love.” ( Esquivel 38)

“It wasn’t enough he’d made his wife jealous earlier, for when Pedro tasted his first mouthful, he couldn’t help closing his eyes in voluptuous delight and exclaiming: ‘It is a dish for the gods!’" ( Esquivel 51)

“Unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying, or dominating, Mama Elena was a pro.” (Esquivel 97)

"Here's what I do with your orders! I'm sick of them! I'm sick of obeying you!.... You did it, you killed Roberto!" (Esquivel 99)

"She could move however she please, yet she didn't know what to do with them, other than knitting. She never taken time to stop and think about these things. At her mother's, what she had to do with her hands were strictly determined, no questions asked. She had to get up, get dressed, get the fire going in the stove, fix breakfast, feed the animals, wash the dishes, make the beds, fix lunch, wash the dishes, iron the clothes, fix dinner, wash the dishes, day after day, year after year. Without pausing for a moment, without wondering if that was what she wanted. Now, seeing her hands no longer at her mother's command, she didn't know what to ask them to do, she had never decided for herself before. They could do anything or become anything." (Esquivel 109)

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle would be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches. For a moment we are dazzled by an intense emotion. A pleasant warmth grows within us, fading slowly as time goes by, until a new explosion comes along to revive it. Each person has to discover what will set off those explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes the soul. That fire, in short, is its food. If one doesn't find out in time what will set off these explosions, the box of matches dampens, and not a single match will ever be lighted." - Dr. John Brown (Esquivel 115)

“Anything could be true or false, depending on whether one believed it.”  (Esquivel 127) 

"I know who I am! A person who has the perfect right to live her life as she pleases. Once and for all, leave me alone; I won't put up with you! I hate you, I've always hated you!"(Esquivel 143)

“Tita was literally ‘like water for chocolate’—she was on the verge of boiling over. How irritable she was! Even the cooing she loved so much—the sound made by the doves she had reestablished under the roof of the house, a sound that had given her so much pleasure since her return—even that noise was annoying." (Esquivel 151)

“It appeared that the two of them had forgotten the most elementary rules of good manners, which tell us that at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics." (Esquivel 155)

"When Esperanza, my mother, returned from her wedding trip, all that she found under the remains of what had been the ranch was a cookbook, which bequeathed to me when she died, and which tells in each of its recipes this story of a love interred. They say that under those ashes every kind of life flourished, making this land the most fertile in the region." (Esquivel 246)