How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Literature and Writing Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

"Otto says we probably met in a New Jersey Greyhound Station, but we've heard all these exciting stories about how we met in Brazil or Colombia or Perú that we got to believing them." (1.3.173)

Have you noticed that there are multiple versions of the same stories floating around in this book? The stories get told over and over again, and some of the details get changed along the way.

Quote #5

Since Clive left, Yolanda is addicted to love stories with happy endings, as if there were a stitch she missed, a mistake she made way back when she fell in love with her first man, and if only she could find it, maybe she could undo it, unravel John, Brad, Steven, Rudy, and start over. (1.3.178)

Life is like a knitted baby blanket. And also like a love story. Whoa... these mixed metaphors are getting confusing. Yoyo turns to this analogy of unraveling the knitted tapestry of her life as a form of therapy—if she can just find her first mistake and fix it, all the other stitches will line up properly.

Quote #6

"Tears, tears," Joe said, reciting again, "tears from the depths of some profound despair." 

"Don't worry," the doctor said, coaching the alarmed parents. "It's just a poem." (1.4.121-122)

Ha! The doctor says that like poems ain't no big thing. If there's one thing Yolanda tries to explain to her (ex) husband John in this chapter, it's that words are a big deal. They're powerful.