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1 " I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later. "
― Esmeralda Santiago , Conquistadora
2 " They have no achievements of their own. They've made nothing, created nothing, worked at nothing. They will leave no trace that they ever existed. They have no legacy except for their names, which they did nothing to earn. "
3 " Ana had experienced reactions like Ramon's in the mirrored salons of Sevilla society, in the waxed halls of the Convento de las Buenas Madres, on the streets of Cadiz and San Juan. It was a look that said, "I see you, but I deign not to speak to you." It said, "I see you but I do not share the high opinion you have of yourself." It said, "I see you but you're not who I want to see." It said, "To me, you don't exist. "
4 " She’d worried at the beginning when she first met them that there were too many patrones. But within weeks she was sure that there was really one boss, and that the other three were working for her. "
5 " How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unknown? "
6 " Just as she'd stripped her body of frills and fripperies in two decades in Puerto Rico, she'd shed her religious belief in much the same way the conquistadores did, for expedience. They arrived in the New World with priests and incantations, but the history of the conquest was strewn with their atrocities, their false promises, rape, their bastards, plunder and murder. They lost their moral center, compromised their faith in the New World. They then erected gold encrusted cathedrals in the Old World to turn humanity's eyes toward beauty and away from their sins. "
7 " But Miguel is the last Argoso and I intend to raise him under my roof, with my values, and, yes, even my prejudices and perhaps some of my vices. That's my prerogative, you see, as the patriarch of this family. "
