María José Ferrada > Quotes

“When he left the hardware store with the order inside his suitcase, he felt that all moments of happiness, large and small, deserved to be projected into a town square.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“When D saw Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon, he thought that anything was possible -- all it took was the right attitude and the right outfit.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“D treated himself to a coffee and jotted down on the napkin: 'Every life has its own moon landing'.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“The second year I learned to look out the window. My parents told me that, over the course of my life, I would win and lose many things. I shouldn't worry; the world would still be out there.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Forever is a very long day.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Mis padres me dijeron que a lo largo de mi vida ganaría y perdería muchas cosas. No debía preocuparme: el mundo siempre seguiría estando ahí afuera.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“What I'm trying to say is that every person tries to explain the inner workings of things with whatever is at hand. I, at seven years of age, had reached out my hand, and had grasped a Kramp catalogue.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Since it played no sound, the fire brigade band provided the backing track. When D saw Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon, he thought that anything was possible—all it took was the right attitude and the right outfit. So, the next day, after approaching the hardware store for the thirty-ninth time, he stepped inside it, in the most polished shoes the city had ever seen, and offered his Kramp products to the person in charge. Nails, saws, hammers, handles, and door viewers. He didn’t close a sale, but he was told to come back the following week. D treated himself to a coffee and jotted down on the napkin: “Every life has its own moon landing.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Todo lo que siguió fue posible gracias a que mi madre estaba ausente. No porque saliera mucho de la casa, sino porque una parte de ella había abandonado su cuerpo y se resistía a volver.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“...one calamity is always followed by another”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“En el momento en que D vio a Neil Armstrong dar el paso hacia la Luna, pensó que con decisión y el traje adecuado, todo era posible”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Let’s see if you’ve understood, Ramón: Your job is to take care of the billboard. To make sure the lamps aren’t filched. If that means you need to sleep up there, swing from a cloud, or hide in the bushes, in all honesty we don’t care.” “Okay, thank you,” said Ramón, who considered what he had just heard a kind of municipal permit to reside in his new dwelling.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“Al salir de la ferretería con su pedido dentro del maletín, sintió que toda felicidad, grande o pequeña, merecía ser proyectada en la plaza de una ciudad.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“I wasn’t a model student, but I was a good model of a typical student.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“tired of dealing with the distance between the image she has of herself and the one the rest of us have of her.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“Do you remember my telling you R’s story?”
“The one about the man who faked his own death?”
“No, the one about the man who worked for the local council and used an entire year’s budget to construct a landing strip for small planes—on which, of course, no small plane ever landed.”
“I remember. He planned the whole thing when he was a kid. His classmates testified, saying that back then he would spend all day making paper planes.”
“That’s the one. Now, think: if that had happened in a city, how long would everybody have been telling the story?”
“Weeks.”
“And if it had happened in a town?”
“Months.”
“And if it had happened in small town?”
“Years.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“They didn’t know it, but the boy who crossed with them—his clothes, they thought, looked a bit muddy—was the ghost of Eduardito, the boy who had drowned. He wanted to warn them that there are junctions where the line joining the past to the present bends right around until it forms a hole. “If you fall down, you won’t come back,” he wanted to tell them. But, with all the adrenaline pumping through them, they didn’t stop to listen.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“Meus pais me disseram que ao longo da vida eu ganharia e perderia muitas coisas. Eu não devia me preocupar: o mundo sempre continuaria existindo lá fora.”
― María José Ferrada, Kramp

“Life was a lonely place.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Recuerdo que fui de campamento, salimos a mirar las estrellas y utilizando la Cruz del Sur como referencia, les expliqué a mis compañeros que lo que brillaba a lo lejos no eran estrellas, sino tachuelas de tres pulgadas con las que El Gran Carpintero lo había colgado todo del cielo. También a nosotros.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Out of all of them, my favorite was the shoe store that belonged to a German immigrant who had escaped a war and, as he fled, had observed the following:
1. The enemy is obliged to enter the battlefield through a space.
2. This space is bound by time.
Which was the equivalent of saying that if one manages to stop time, the enemy will be stopped in its tracks too.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Relationships between what happens above and what happens below. You had to position yourself in an intermediary space—not too attached to the earth, not too close to the sky—in order to see them.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“Through dark places too—stammering, tears, hiccups—that were useful in their own way. For what? Only he knew. After all, he alone trod the path of his drunkenness. A rocky path—all the world’s drinkers know as much—but as illuminating as any of those traveled by the great sages of the Jesus Christ or André the Giant variety.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Turn Into a Bird

“The drives I most liked were the drives home. And it wasn't because home was at the end of the road, but because the late-afternoon light simplified everything. At that time of day, the world looked like a scale model I'd seen in one of the many hardware stores we visited.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe

“Las cafeterías eran un sol particular y si alguien hubiera mirado por debajo de la mesa habría visto muchos zapatos negros exageradamente lustrados, maletines y unos zapatos blancos que colgaban de la silla, los míos.”
― María José Ferrada, How to Order the Universe