Family Quote by Carmen Maria Machado

“She was a stranger because something essential was shielded, released in tiny bursts until it became a flood---a flood of what I realized I…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“Beyond the table, there is an altar, with candles lit for Billie Holiday and Willa Carter and Hypatia and Patsy Cline. Next to it,…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“Many people live and die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness.”

— Carmen Maria Machado

“What I say: “Why did you leave her with me?” What I want to say: “This almost broke me, but it didn’t. It made…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“And there was nothing in my eyes. Or even worse -- nothingness. Not the presence of a thing but the presence of a non-thing.”

— Carmen Maria Machado

“You never live with a woman, you live inside of her, I overheard my father say to my brother once, and it was, indeed,…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“That night, I wash myself. The silky suds between my legs are the color and scent of rust, but I am newer than I…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“A feeling settles over me—a one-beer-deep feeling, a no-more-skittering-feet-after-the-trap-snaps feeling.”

— Carmen Maria Machado

“Will I ever be done, transformed in the past tense, or will I always be transforming, better and better until I die?”

— Carmen Maria Machado

“She’s like dough, how the give of it beneath kneading hands disguises its sturdiness, its potential.”

— Carmen Maria Machado

“Mara, remember how you kicked sand into that neighbor child’s eyes? I yelled at you and made you apologize in your best dress, and…

— Carmen Maria Machado

“(If you read this story out loud, please use the following voices: ME: as a child, high-pitched, forgettable; as a woman, the same. THE…

— Carmen Maria Machado