In the Time of the Butterflies By Kennedy, Brenda, Tim, Jonah, and Shirali

pg. 11 “The four of us had to ask permission for everything”

pg. 11 “One time, I opened a cage to set a half-grown doe free. I even gave her a slap to get her going. But she wouldn’t budge! She was used to her little pen. I kept slapping her, harder each time, until she started whimpering like a scared child. I was the one hurting her, insisting she be free. Silly bunny, i thought. You are nothing at all like me.”

pg. 13 “And that’s how I got free. I don’t mean just going to a sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. I mean in my head after I got to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I’d just left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country.”

pg. 23 “... he took the opportunity to lecture me about why the hens shouldn’t wander away from the safety of the barnyard… She lived all alone now, waiting for him to call her up. I guess there was a whole other pretty girl now taking up his attention.”

pg. 44 “Even being born, I was coming out, hands first, as if reaching up for something. Thank goodness, the midwife checked Mama at the last minute and lowered my arms the way you fold in a captive bird’s wings so it doesn’t hurt itself trying to fly.”

pg. 85 Three years cooped at home since I’d graduated from Inmaculada, and I was ready to scream with boredom. The worse part was getting newsy letters from Elsa and Sinita in the capital. They were taking a Theory of Errors class that would make Sor Asunción’s hair stand on end even under her wimple. They had seen Tin-Tan in Tender Little Pumpkins, and been to the country club to hear Alberti and his band. And there were so many nice-looking men in the capital!

pg. 98 “‘I don’t feel very much like a national treasure.’ “And why not, a jewel like you?’ His eyes sparkles with interest. ‘I feel like I’m wasting my life in Ojo de Agua.’ ‘Perhaps we can bring you down to the capital.’ he says archly. ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to convince Papá to do...I’ve always wanted to study law.’ He gives me the indulgent smile of a adult hearing an outrageous claim fro a child. ‘A woman like you, a lawyer?’”

p165 “If you were caught harboring any enemies of the regime even if you yourself were not involved in their schemes, you would be jailed, and everything you owned would become the property of the government.”

p180 “Next Sunday, while Jaimito was at his gallera, Dedé would ride over to the meeting. When he came back, he would find the note on his pillow.”

pg. 227 “The fear is the worse part. Every time I hear footsteps coming down the hall, or the clink of the key turning in the lock, I'm tempted to curl up in the corner like a hurt animal, whimpering, wanting to be safe”