What has never changed, what is always present and what is, in the end, what sustains us is that energy that I talk about in 'Like Water for Chocolate...' that loving energy. Without that, I wouldn't have had the strength to keep going and enjoy life.

Laura Esquivel

No one who loves life can ignore literature, and no one who loves literature can ignore life.

Laura Esquivel

love-literature love-life literature

Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves; just as in the experiment, we need oxygen and a candle to help. In this case, the oxygen, for example, would come from the breath of the person you love; the candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, or sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches.

Laura Esquivel

oxygen light sound

[...] each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves

Laura Esquivel

born lust love

[Words] cling to the very core of our memories and lie there in silence until a new desire reawakens them and recharges them with loving energy. That is one of the qualities of love that moves me most, their capacity for transmitting love. Like water, words are a wonderful conductor of energy. And the most powerful, transforming energy is the energy of love.

Laura Esquivel

powerful memories lying

It was very pleasant to savor its aroma, for smells have the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present. -Tita

Laura Esquivel

smell sound past

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self understanding and this is something that can't be taught.

Laura Esquivel

self teacher school

You must take care to light the matches one at a time. If a powerful emotion should ignite them all at once, they would produce a splendor so dazzling that it would illuminate far beyond what we can normally see; and then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origins we had lost. The soul ever longs to return to the place from which it came, leaving the body lifeless.

Laura Esquivel

powerful tunnels eye

"Only the pots know the boiling points of the broths," she says as Tita weeps into the wedding batter she is making to celebrate the marriage of her sister to her own true love.

Laura Esquivel

celebrate soup pot

You don't have to think about love; you either feel it or you don't.

Laura Esquivel

love-you feels thinking

Keeping secrets will always lead to unhappiness and communication is the key to love.

Laura Esquivel

keeping-secrets communication keys

Once again she would arrive at a foreign place. Once again be the newcomer, an outsider, the one who did not belong. She knew from experience that she would quickly have to ingratiate herself with her new masters to avoid being rejected or, in more dire cases, punished. Then there would be the phase where she would have to sharpen her senses in order to see and hear as acutely as possible so that she could assimilate quickly all the new customs and the words most frequently used by the group she was to become a part of--so that finally, she would be judged on her own merits.

Laura Esquivel

groups would-be order

Words travel as swiftly as desire, so it is possible to send a message of love without them.

Laura Esquivel

messages desire

To know how to produce a work of art is to know how to discard the extraneous.

Laura Esquivel

produce know-how art

Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more like dry labor.

Laura Esquivel

dry tears hurt

To the table or to bed, you must come when you are bid.

Laura Esquivel

bed tables

Tita knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour.

Laura Esquivel

soul fire love-is

The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can’t stop!

Laura Esquivel

onions next tears

The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.

Laura Esquivel

personality gathering doe

There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.

Laura Esquivel

things-in-life given essentials

No matter how successful a relationship may be, both sexually and emotionally, the lack of money can hamper and undermine, little by little, even the greatest passion.

Laura Esquivel

passion money successful