Like Water for Chocolate Quotes

Pedro: I'm a man of few, but firm, words.

Tita: [to Mama Elena] Roberto's death is your fault!

Doctor John Brown: I see you didn't touch your dinner. Sue Ellen is a horrible cook, but my son and I put up with her food. Of course, *you* don't have to.

Gertrudis: If you were still in love with Pedro, you wouldn't be marrying John.

Rosaura: I don't know where Gertrudis got her sense of rhythm. Mother didn't like to dance, and Dad was a bad dancer.

Bisnieta: [voiceover] When Tita felt Pedro's enduring gaze on her shoulders, she completely understood how raw dough must feel when in contact with boiling oil. The heat that she felt was so real that she feared that, just like dough, blisters would cover her body. The belly, the heart, the breasts. She looked down and tried to escape.

Pedro: If you couldn't marry the woman you love, and the only solution to be near her was to marry her sister, wouldn't you do the same?

Nacha: Eat, my darling. The sorrows seem smaller when you eat.

Bisnieta: [voiceover] That night Tita couldn't sleep. She couldn't explain what she felt. It's a shame that at the time black holes hadn't been discovered yet. Because it would have been very easy to understand that she had a black hole in her chest allowing all the infinitely cold air to rush in. That night she cried and knitted, knitted and cried till dawn, until she finished a quilt and put it over her shoulders. But it didn't help. Neither that night, nor many other nights could she conquer the cold.

Chencha: Don't do that, my child. They are like the devil. They say that one look from them and you get pregnant.

Bisnieta: [voiceover] She invaded Pedro's body voluptuously, ardently fragrant, and utterly sensual. It seemed they had discovered a new code of communication, and Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and Gertrudis was the lucky one, within whom this sexual relation was synthesized through food.

Bisnieta: [voiceover] While preparing the mole, Tita realized how contact with fire changes the elements. How a piece of dough becomes a tortilla. How a breast, without having passed through the fire of love, is a lifeless breast, a useless ball of dough. In just one moment, Pedro had transformed Tita's breasts from chaste to voluptuous without having to touch them.

Mamá Elena: I have never needed a man for anything. I managed the ranch and my daughters by myself. Besides, men are not so important for living with, Father. And the revolution is not as dangerous as they say. It's worse to have chilis and no water.

Mamá Elena: What are you thinking about, stupid little girl? Save your tears for when I die.

Mamá Elena: Why are you crying, child? It drives me crazy seeing you crying.

Mamá Elena: Sit down and keep working! And no tears!

Mamá Elena: Poor child. I hope he is in heaven with God. We can't let sorrow take over. There is a lot of work to do.

Bisnieta: [voiceover] Tita, with her hands free from her mother's orders, didn't know what to do with them. They could do anything or change into anything. If they just could turn into birds and fly away, she would like to go as far away as possible. She wanted to escape from herself. She didn't want to think about making a decision. Above all, she didn't want to talk ever again. She didn't want her words to scream out her pain.

Doctor John Brown: My grandmother, Morning Star, was a Kikapu Indian. She said that we are all born with a match box inside of us, and we can't light them ourselves. We need, like in this experiment, oxygen and a candle. But in our case, the oxygen must come from the breath of the lover. The light of the candle can be anything. A song, a word, a caress, a sound. Just anything! Something that pulls the trigger and lights on of the matches. Each of us has to discover what our triggers to life are; because, the combustion of one of the matches feeds the soul. If there is no trigger for the matches, the match box gets damp, and we'll never be able to light any of them. There are many ways in which we can dry a damp match box. Rest assured, it can be solved. It's also very important to light the matches one by one. If an intense emotion were to light them all at once, they would create such a brilliant light, that before our eyes a tunnel would appear, magnificent, showing us the way we forgot when we were born. Calling us back to find our lost divine origin.

Chencha: I'm about to go crazy. She has nobody to order around, so I get it all! And she even gives me advice. She says that disobedient women that leave their houses end up in the troubled waters of the lustful life.

Tita: I believe what I am. Somebody with the right to live her life the way she wants.

Gertrudis: Female soldiers avoid pregnancy washing with vinegar and water. Be careful.

Doctor John Brown: Next time, Chencha. Next time.