“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
―
Carmen Maria Machado,
In the Dream House
“We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“We can’t stop living. Which means we have to live, which means we are alive, which means we are humans and we are human: some of us are unkind and some of us are confused and some of us sleep with the wrong people and some of us make bad decisions and some of us are murderers. And it sounds terrible but it is, in fact, freeing: the idea that queer does not equal good or pure or right. It is simply a state of being—one subject to politics, to its own social forces, to larger narratives, to moral complexities of every kind. So bring on the queer villains, the queer heroes, the queer sidekicks and secondary characters and protagonists and extras. They can be a complete cast unto themselves. Let them have agency, and then let them go.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Abusers do not need to be, and rarely are, cackling maniacs. They just need to want something and not care how they get it.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I took a step toward her. "It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right," I said. "It is my right to be unsociable and it is my right to be unpleasant to be around. Do you ever listen to yourself? This is crazy, that is crazy, everything is crazy to you. By whose measure? Well, it is my right to be crazy, as you love to say so much. I have no shame. I have felt many things in my life, but shame is not among them." The volume of my voice caused me to stand on my tiptoes. I could not remember yelling like this, ever. "You may think that I have an obligation to you but I assure you that us being thrown together in this arbitrary arrangement does not cohesion make. I have never had less of an obligation to anyone in my life, you aggressively ordinary woman.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“Love cannot be won or lost; a relationship doesn't have a scoring system. We are partners, paired against the world. We cannot succeed if we are at odds with each other.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“There is a Quichua riddle: El que me nombra, me rompe. Whatever names me, breaks me. The solution, your course, is "silence." But the truth is, anyone who knows your name can break you in two.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had her hauled her off to a sanatorium. I don’t know what deviant pleasure she asked for, though I desperately wish I did. What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it?” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn’t that they’ll remember; it’s that you’ll remember. —Sarah Manguso” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them. I know I should have a very specific political response to them. I know, for example, I should be offended by Disney’s lineup of vain, effete ne’er-do-wells (Scar, Jafar), sinister drag queens (Ursula, Cruella de Vil), and constipated, man-hating power dykes (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent). I should be furious at Downton Abbey’s scheming gay butler and Girlfriend’s controlling, lunatic lesbian, and I should be indignant about Rebecca and Strangers on a Train and Laura and The Terror and All About Eve, and every other classic and contemporary foppish, conniving, sissy, cruel, humorless, depraved, evil, insane homosexual on the large and small screen. And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually—the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness became a kind of shorthand for each other—I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Why do you want to hide it from me?''I'm not hiding it. It just isn't yours.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“I had a room to myself as a kid, but my mother was always quick to point out that it wasn't my room, it was her room and I was merely permitted to occupy it. Her point, of course, was that my parents had earned everything and I was merely borrowing the space, and while this is technically true I cannot help but marvel at the singular damage of this dark idea: That my existence as a child was a kind of debt and nothing, no matter how small, was mine. That no space was truly private; anything of mine could be forfeited at someone else's whim.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness. Pray that one day, you will spin around at the water’s edge, lean over, and be able to count yourself among the lucky.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“We can’t stop living. Which means we have to live, which means we are alive, which means we are humans and we are human: some of us are unkind and some of us are confused and some of us sleep with the wrong people and some of us make bad decisions and some of us are murderers. And it sounds terrible but it is, in fact, freeing: the idea that queer does not equal good or pure or right. It is simply a state of being—one subject to politics, to its own social forces, to larger narratives, to moral complexities of every kind. So bring on the queer villains, the queer heroes, the queer sidekicks and secondary characters and protagonists and extras. They can be a complete cast unto themselves. Let them have agency, and then let them go.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Abusers do not need to be, and rarely are, cackling maniacs. They just need to want something and not care how they get it.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I took a step toward her. "It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right," I said. "It is my right to be unsociable and it is my right to be unpleasant to be around. Do you ever listen to yourself? This is crazy, that is crazy, everything is crazy to you. By whose measure? Well, it is my right to be crazy, as you love to say so much. I have no shame. I have felt many things in my life, but shame is not among them." The volume of my voice caused me to stand on my tiptoes. I could not remember yelling like this, ever. "You may think that I have an obligation to you but I assure you that us being thrown together in this arbitrary arrangement does not cohesion make. I have never had less of an obligation to anyone in my life, you aggressively ordinary woman.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“Love cannot be won or lost; a relationship doesn't have a scoring system. We are partners, paired against the world. We cannot succeed if we are at odds with each other.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“There is a Quichua riddle: El que me nombra, me rompe. Whatever names me, breaks me. The solution, your course, is "silence." But the truth is, anyone who knows your name can break you in two.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had her hauled her off to a sanatorium. I don’t know what deviant pleasure she asked for, though I desperately wish I did. What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it?” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
“I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“The trouble with letting people see you at your worst isn’t that they’ll remember; it’s that you’ll remember. —Sarah Manguso” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“I think a lot about queer villains, the problem and pleasure and audacity of them. I know I should have a very specific political response to them. I know, for example, I should be offended by Disney’s lineup of vain, effete ne’er-do-wells (Scar, Jafar), sinister drag queens (Ursula, Cruella de Vil), and constipated, man-hating power dykes (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent). I should be furious at Downton Abbey’s scheming gay butler and Girlfriend’s controlling, lunatic lesbian, and I should be indignant about Rebecca and Strangers on a Train and Laura and The Terror and All About Eve, and every other classic and contemporary foppish, conniving, sissy, cruel, humorless, depraved, evil, insane homosexual on the large and small screen. And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually—the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness became a kind of shorthand for each other—I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Why do you want to hide it from me?''I'm not hiding it. It just isn't yours.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
“I had a room to myself as a kid, but my mother was always quick to point out that it wasn't my room, it was her room and I was merely permitted to occupy it. Her point, of course, was that my parents had earned everything and I was merely borrowing the space, and while this is technically true I cannot help but marvel at the singular damage of this dark idea: That my existence as a child was a kind of debt and nothing, no matter how small, was mine. That no space was truly private; anything of mine could be forfeited at someone else's whim.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness. Pray that one day, you will spin around at the water’s edge, lean over, and be able to count yourself among the lucky.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
