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New York City’s Avatar
The avatar of São Paolo, Paolo is a “stylish” Brazilian man who uses cigarettes and business cards as symbols of his city. Born in a favela (slum neighborhood) of São Paolo, Paolo became its avatar in the 1960s, when Brazil’s military dictatorship attempted to raze the city’s favelas. Though he has repeatedly warned the other living cities that their enemy (the Woman in White) has changed tactics, they ignore his theory that she caused the stillbirths of New Orleans and Port-au-Prince. As the youngest living city’s avatar, the other living cities task Paolo with helping New York City’s avatar to understand his role and aid New York City’s birth. While teaching New York City’s avatar, Paolo has a brief sexual liaison with him. After New York City’s avatar disappears, Paolo realizes that the city’s boroughs have chosen their own avatars. He asks Hong—Hong Kong’s avatar, with whom Paolo has a combative but possibly romantic relationship—to come help. When he learns from Aishwarya that Padmini, Manny, and Brooklyn have found one another and know where to find Bronca, Paolo decides to recruit Staten Island’s avatar Aislyn. Though Aislyn is initially willing to go with Paolo, the Woman in White triggers Aislyn’s racist beliefs about non-white men like Paolo and turns Aislyn against him—at which point she blasts him unconscious with her borough’s power. Hong retrieves an unconscious Paolo and brings him to the Bronx Art Center. After Hong and the borough’s avatars succeed in reviving Paolo, Paolo goes with Manny to find New York City’s avatar while the others travel to Staten Island to recruit Aislyn. After Manny, Bronca, Brooklyn, Padmini, and Veneza wake New York City’s avatar and defeat the Woman in White, Paolo invites them all to a meeting of living cities in Paris, says goodbye to New York City’s avatar, and leaves.
Paolo (São Paolo) Quotes in The City We Became
The The City We Became quotes below are all either spoken by Paolo (São Paolo) or refer to Paolo (São Paolo). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue
Quotes
Back when I was in school, there was an artist who came in on Fridays to give us free lessons in perspective and lighting and other shit that white people go to art school to learn. Except this guy had done that, and he was Black. I’d never seen a Black artist before. For a minute I thought I could maybe be one, too.
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He’s been talking like this since he showed up—places that never were, things that can’t be, omens and portents. I figure it’s bullshit because he’s telling it to me, a kid whose own mama kicked him out and prays for him to die every day and probably hates me. God hates me. And I fucking hate God back, so why would he choose me for anything? But that’s really why I start paying attention: because of God. I don’t have to believe in something for it to fuck up my life.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Everything that happens everywhere else happens on Staten Island, too, but here people try not to see the indecencies, the domestic violence, the drug use. And then, having denied what’s right in front of their eyes, they tell themselves that at least they’re living in a good place full of good people. At least it’s not the city.
[…]
Evil comes from elsewhere, Matthew Houlihan believes. Evil is other people. She will leave him this illusion, mostly because she envies his ability to keep finding comfort in simple, black-and-white views of the world. Aislyn’s ability to do the same is rapidly eroding.
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Chapter 16
Quotes
“Living cities aren’t defined by politics,” he says. It’s almost a shout, so urgently does he speak. “Not by city limits or county lines. They’re made of whatever the people who live in and around them believe.”
Get the entire The City We Became LitChart as a printable PDF.
Paolo (São Paolo) Quotes in The City We Became
The The City We Became quotes below are all either spoken by Paolo (São Paolo) or refer to Paolo (São Paolo). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue
Quotes
Back when I was in school, there was an artist who came in on Fridays to give us free lessons in perspective and lighting and other shit that white people go to art school to learn. Except this guy had done that, and he was Black. I’d never seen a Black artist before. For a minute I thought I could maybe be one, too.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
He’s been talking like this since he showed up—places that never were, things that can’t be, omens and portents. I figure it’s bullshit because he’s telling it to me, a kid whose own mama kicked him out and prays for him to die every day and probably hates me. God hates me. And I fucking hate God back, so why would he choose me for anything? But that’s really why I start paying attention: because of God. I don’t have to believe in something for it to fuck up my life.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Everything that happens everywhere else happens on Staten Island, too, but here people try not to see the indecencies, the domestic violence, the drug use. And then, having denied what’s right in front of their eyes, they tell themselves that at least they’re living in a good place full of good people. At least it’s not the city.
[…]
Evil comes from elsewhere, Matthew Houlihan believes. Evil is other people. She will leave him this illusion, mostly because she envies his ability to keep finding comfort in simple, black-and-white views of the world. Aislyn’s ability to do the same is rapidly eroding.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
“Living cities aren’t defined by politics,” he says. It’s almost a shout, so urgently does he speak. “Not by city limits or county lines. They’re made of whatever the people who live in and around them believe.”
