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1 " My great-grandmama told my grandma the part she lived through that my grandma didn't live through and my grandma told my mama what they both didn't live through and my mama told me. "
― Gayl Jones , Corregidora
2 " I lay on my back, feeling as if more than the womb had been taken out. "
3 " There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don't know what I mean, or whether I'm true myself to any of that. I don't think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities. "
― Gayl Jones , The Healing
4 " She was closed up like a fist. It her very own memory, not theirs, her very own real and terrible and lonely and dark memory. "
5 " It was as if she had more than learned it off by heart. Though. it was as if their memory, the memory of all the Corregidora women, was her memory too, as strong with her as her own private memory, or almost as strong. But now she was Mama again. "
6 " I wanted a song that would touch me, touch my life and theirs. A portuguese song, but not a portuguese. song. A new world song. A song branded with the new world. I thought of the girl who had to sleep with her master and mistress. Her father, the master. Her daughter's father. The father of her daughter's daughter. How many generations. Days that were pages of hysteria. their survival depended on suppressed hysteria. "
7 " I am Ursa Corregidora. I have tears for eyes. I was made to touch my past at an early age. I found it on my mother’s tiddies. In her milk. Let no one pollute my music. I will dig out their temples. I will pluck out their eyes. "
8 " Everything said in the beginning must be said better than in the beginning. "
9 " How many generations? Days that were pages of hysteria. Their survival depended on suppressed hysteria. "
