Manuel Puig on the Psychology of Oppression

“Outside of this cell we may have our oppressors, yes, but not one inside. Here one oppresses the other. The only thing that seems to disturb me…because I’m exhausted, or conditioned, or perverted…is that someone wants to be nice to me, without asking anything back for it.”

Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman ch. 11 (1976)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.