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,… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
Sometimes I would be very upset because my memories are very murky from my childhood, but there are certain emotional memories or emotional truths… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
“Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
“I’m an adult,” the boy says. “I got rights.” “Everybody’s got rights. A man tied to a bed got rights. A man down in… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
As you become an adult, shame gets introduced and reintroduced constantly to you. So where something that, to a child, just is what it… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
I don't think that any family has a function. I just think that a family is. It just exists. — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
Animals don't think in terms of victims and villains, or good and bad, or evil, or shame. — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
“All that pent up longing,” he says, “all that desire to flail and flap around. Them wings have needs.” — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
We hit and we kept on hitting; we were allowed to be what we were, frightened and vengeful — little animals, clawing at what… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
This is your heritage,' he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
“WE ALL THREE sat at the kitchen table in our raincoats, and Joel smashed tomatoes with a small rubber mallet. We had seen it… — Justin Torres Copy Share Image
