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I Am Madame X QUOTES

I Am Madame X QUOTES

1 " After she found out Aurelie was a Negro, Mama became obsessed with the color of my skin, as if Aurelie's hidden blackness had been contagious and I might have caught a touch of it. Whenever she saw me, she stared at me with furrowed brow and complained that I was losing my "bloom." To protect me from the sun, she gave me a parasol to carry when I went out with her, and a straw hat to wear in the convent garden. Still, she worried. "

― Gioia Diliberto , I Am Madame X

2 " I had thought photography could reflect the truth of a woman's beauty. But after seeing these horrible prints, I decided it was an imperfect art, impossible for the photographer and sitter to control. Painting, on the other hand, I began to believe, could reveal something greater than reality. In the right hands with the right chemistry between artist and sitter, painting could illuminate a higher truth. More to the point, it had the power to immortalize. A beautiful woman captured on canvas is eternally youthful, eternally adored. I thought of Shakespeare's description of Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. "

― Gioia Diliberto , I Am Madame X

3 " As the ship pulled into the slip, the familiar screech of the steam whistle brought forth a flood of memories. A terrible sense of loss came over me, and I thought of Parlange with a stab of longing. I began to wish I had never left this country of magnolias and Spanish moss, of languid days and soft, warm nights. There's something to be said for staying where you were born and placed by God. "

― Gioia Diliberto , I Am Madame X