Cynthia Pelayo > Quotes

“Chicago was plagued with hundreds and hundreds of unsolved murders and missing persons cases. Lauren knew this was her purgatory, her reason for living to find them and set this right.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Children of Chicago

“Was your kindness smothered in cruelty?”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“Parents of children with disabilities live in this constant elevated state of anxiety, sometimes even teetering between despair and dread. We know our children have this beaming innocence within them, but because of that they sometimes misinterpret human intention.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker's Magician

“Art is subjective and everyone should be allowed to like the creations they enjoy, while not having to feel pressured by another’s preferences.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker's Magician

“There was never enough money.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Lotería

“At the entrance of the gardens, Lauren approached the two large bronze buffalos, replicas of buffalo statues that were displayed during the World’s Columbian Exhibition in 1893. The event was meant to celebrate Columbus’ arrival in the New World in 1492. The fair was so spectacular that people still talk about it today, the fourteen great buildings constructed by famous architects. There were fairgrounds of wonder and mystery, science and invention, but almost all of it was temporary, temporary buildings, canals and lagoons. Over twenty-seven million people visited Chicago in those six months during the fair and took with them to their small rural towns, cities across America and country’s far away the stories of a great city on a prairie, a great people, and all of the magic that lives there.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Children of Chicago

“Borinquen — the name originally given to it by the indigenous Tainos before Christopher Columbus came and took everything, including their name, away.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Children of Chicago

“The Robber Bridegroom,” “The Crows,” “The Willful Child,” and “The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn How to Shudder.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Children of Chicago

“It’s woven into the brilliant fabric of who he is, and if someone cannot accept that, then they cannot accept him and do not need to be in our lives.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker's Magician

“A child shouldn’t be afraid to utter a word in their own house, for fear it would be met with mocking, resistance, a belt, a hand yanking hair, followed by a closed fist across the face.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker's Magician

“Performing magic behind a cloud on a breathless night confident you'll discover its indiscretion”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Poems of My Night

“Thomas Edison: “Of all of my inventions, I liked the phonograph best. Life’s most soothing things are sweet music and a child’s good night.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“He does this often, echolalia, the repetition of sounds, words, phrases, or full sentences. Echolalia is just one of the many characteristics that sets Bela apart from the other children.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, The Shoemaker's Magician

“I can't speak. I can't think. words are water and everything melds into a sea of suffering.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“but no one wants to talk about how a serial killer was living nearby, so bye as he died and took so much with him”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“So many men say they do not know what happened to the now missing women who were once under their care.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“some friends open the doors to our exit”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“Jennie is moonlight and midnight.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“real?”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Vanishing Daughters

“A house is alive, as we are alive. In many ways a house is always recording, and when ready it will recount to us images and sounds, maybe more of the secrets it holds. A house always watches, waits, and listens for its caretaker, but it also recognizes when a new tide is coming, and it will warn us.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“for while she was not a little child she was a child her child, and in the contours of the face of an older woman she could see the full, fat cheeks of her once baby, her forever baby, no matter the age”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“We’re all looking for someone to bring us joy and comfort, and sometimes that comfort lies in spotting something in someone that we can identify with. We’re all trying to find reflections of ourselves in others to soothe our loneliness to not just say that we’re not alone but that this person understands us and we understand them. That’s divine connection.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“... I want to comb
your hair, your beautiful hair, I
can only imagine it was smooth
as a spider web, but only those
insects know where your face is
now”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“Ghosts are recordings reliving moments of their life. They cannot move off course from their routine unless there’s a disruption to their path.” “What kind of disruption?”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“there’s anyone who could know how to spin a lie how to weave a web, hide a body, it would be someone who dances with the law”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“Some memories are far too painful to resuscitate, and so they remain floating somewhere in the depths of our hearts.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters

“Your skin smelled of oranges, bright and warmed by the sun, streaks of luminous hair blemished by earth, tainted by the touch of someone who did not love you.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“It is fleeting, and the night is an origami figure, a contortionist, bending into itself.”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“The necklace that hung around her neck, of a black crystal and a wizard holding a tiger’s eye pendant some of the powers of the stone are believed to be the release of fear and anxiety, and to aid with decisions, discernment and understanding. Perhaps this stone released you of any fear in those last few moments of violation, perhaps this stone can radiate the energy to someone, anyone who can unlock the secret of your last moments you are no longer on the ground, where you were cast off with hate. You have been laid into the earth, and done so with care, the plaque on your pauper’s grave reads: “Jane Doe”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through

“Gather around the campfire of crimes committed against children, bodies located an hour from home, in a place so remote screams were muffled to those dark stars. It remains a mystery, they say but there is no mystery when someone knows, and others won’t speak, and all that is left of this investigation at one point fit into a slim manila envelope, because detectives of the past did not seek further, did not track down the road of violence for the violated you won’t name suspects. Shame on those that cradle those girl’s cries in their memory. Bookshelves now tell of their suffering”
― Cynthia Pelayo, Into the Forest and all the Way Through