Love Quotes in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
How we cite our quotes: (Act.Chapter.Section.Paragraph), (Act.Special Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Ana Obregón, unlike every other girl in his secret cosmology, he actually fell for as they were getting to know each other. [...]. Incredibly enough, instead of making an idiot out of himself as one might have expected, given the hard fact that this was the first girl he'd ever had a conversation with, he actually took it a day at a time. He spoke to her plainly and without effort and discovered that his constant self-deprecation pleased her immensely. It was amazing how it was between them; he would say something really obvious and uninspired, and she'd say, Oscar, you're really f***ing smart. (1.1.5.1)
One of young Oscar's oddities is that he falls for a girl before he ever gets to know her. He usually imagines a whole romance with said girl in his head. So when he actually goes up to talk to her, he sounds obsessed. This doesn't happen with Ana. As our narrator notes, things with Ana happened so quickly that Oscar didn't have to time to let his imagination run wild. We don't normally recommend rushing into things, but it might actually be good for our boy Oscar.
Quote #2
Love. Oscar knew he should have checked out right then. He liked to kid himself that it was only cold anthropological interest that kept him around to see how it could all end, but the truth was he couldn't extricate himself. He was totally and irrevocably in love with Ana. What he used to feel for those girls he'd never really known was nothing compared to the amor [love] he was carrying around for Ana. It had the density of a dwarf-motherfucking-star and at times he was a hundred percent sure it would drive him mad. (1.1.6.31)
Did we say that Oscar falls hard for girls? We're actually not sure why Oscar is such a romantic; it's just a given of his character. But when he starts to like someone, Oscar can't help but fall head-over-heels in love. Especially if she shows some interest, too.
Quote #3
She wasn't the only girl dreaming like this. This jiringonza was in the air, it was the dreamshit that they fed girls day and night. It's surprising Beli could think of anything else, what with that heavy rotation of boleros, canciones, and versos spinning in her head, with the Listín Diario's society pages spread before her. Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year-old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children, and fortune believes in God. Belicia was, if it was possible, even more susceptible to the Casanova wave than many of her peers. Our girl was straight boycrazy. (1.1.3.14)
Can you think of someone else who dreams about love and sex (a lot) as a teenager? That's right. Oscar Wao. We guess it runs in the family… Just like the fukú.
Quote #4
Beli in love! Round Two! But unlike what happened with Pujols, this was the real deal: pure uncut unadulterated love, the Holy Grail that would so bedevil her children throughout their lives. Consider that Beli had longed, hungered, for chance to be in love and to be loved back (not very long in real time but a forever in the chronometer of her adolescence). [...]. With The Gangster our girl finally got her chance. (1.1.9.17)
We at Shmoop would like to note the following: although Beli falls in love (a few times), she usually chooses the wrong guy. The same can be said for Oscar. (Or even Lola, although she eventually drops Yunior for a more stable relationship.) Is the family cursed in love, or does everyone just make bad choices in their romantic lives at some point or another?
Quote #5
Two weeks late, La Jablesse gave Oscar the coup de friendship: he walked in on her while she was "entertaining" the punk, caught them both naked, probably covered in blood or something, and before she could even say, Get out, he went berserk. Called her a whore and attacked her walls, tearing down her posters and throwing her books everywhere.
If Oscar ate at the Cafeteria of Love, unrequited love would be his favorite entree. The guy just has a knack for getting himself hurt. At the end of the novel, however, Ybón finally returns Oscar's love. It's really quite touching. We admit it: it made us cry.
Quote #6
And there were pictures of Oscar's mom and dad. Young. Taken in the two years of their relationship.
You loved him, [Oscar] said to her.
[Beli] laughed. Don't talk about what you know nothing about. (2.6.1.14-2.6.1.16)
Beli says that Oscar doesn't know anything about love. Is she wrong? Hasn't Oscar fallen in love a number of times already? Or is Beli right—since no one has ever loved Oscar back? That is, until Ybón.
Quote #7
So, after Lola flew back to the States (Take good care of yourself, Mister) and the terror and joy of his return had subsided, after he settled down in Abuela's [grandmother's] house, the house that Diaspora had built, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his summer now that Lola was gone, after his fantasy of an Island girlfriend seemed like a distant joke – Who the f*** had he been kidding? He couldn't dance, he didn't have loot, he didn't dress, he wasn't confident, he wasn't handsome, he wasn't from Europe, he wasn't f***ing no Island girls – after he spent one week writing and (ironically enough) turned down his male cousins' offer to take him to a whorehouse like fifty times, Oscar fell in love with a semiretired puta [whore]. (2.6.5.2)
It sounds like Oscar's having a tough time with the ladies in the Dominican Republic, are we right? Oh, and then, when he finally falls in love Ybón, that woman's boyfriend ends up killing him. Díaz keeps returning to this pesky combination of love and fukú. What gives?
Quote #8
Oh, [Oscar and Ybón] got close all right, but we have to ask the hard questions again: Did they ever kiss in her Pathfinder? [...]. Did they ever f***?
Of course not. Miracles only go so far. He watched her for the signs, signs that would tell him she loved him. He began to suspect that it might not happen this summer, but already he had plans to come back for Thanksgiving, and then for Christmas. When he told her, she looked at him strangely and said only his name, Oscar, a little sadly. (2.6.11.1-2.6.11.2)
Yunior worries that Oscar hasn't kissed (or done anything else with) Ybón. But if you look closely at these paragraphs, it seems like Oscar is simply looking for a sign that Ybón loves him. Don't get us wrong: Oscar wants to have sex. He talks a lot about sex in the novel. But if we had to point out a major difference between Oscar and Yunior, it'd be this: Yunior is way more obsessed with sex. More than anything else, Oscar really wants to be in a reciprocal, loving relationship.
Quote #9
One night after the condom-foil incident Oscar woke up in his overly air-conditioned room and realized with unusual clarity that he was heading down that road again. The road where he became so nuts over a girl he stopped thinking. The road where very bad things happened. You should stop right now, he told himself. But he knew, with lapidary clarity, that he wasn't going to stop. He loved Ybón. (And love, for this kid, was a geas, something that could not be shaken or denied.) (2.6.12.4)
Oscar is watching himself make a bad choice, but he can't do anything to change course. Does this passage suggest that Oscar is so deeply in love that he's irrational, or does it suggest that he's cursed? Perhaps he's both…?