Pete Sullivan

“The 130 species that swim the Amur read like a lexicon of invented creatures: the skygazer, the sharpbelly, the chameleon goby, the Amur sleeper, the three-lips, the eight-whiskered stone loach.”
― Colin Thubron, The Amur River: Between Russia And China

“He rode well. I'm a good horsewoman, but he was good as I was or maybe better, I don't know. At the time I thought he was better. Galloping without stirrups is hard and he galloped clinging to the horse's back until he was out of sight. As I waited I counted the cigarette butts that he had stubbed out beside the hut and they made me want to learn to smoke. Hours later, as we were on our way back in my father's car, him in front and me in back, he said that there was probably some pyramid lying buried under our land. I remember that my father turned his eyes from the road to look at him. Pyramids? Yes he said, deep underground there must be lots of pyramids. My father didn't say anything. From the darkness of the backseat, I asked him why he thought that. He didn't answer. Then we started to talk about other things but I kept wondering why he'd said that about the pyramids. I kept thinking about pyramids. I kept thinking about my father's stony plot of land and much later, when I'd lost touch with him, each time I went back to that barren place I thought about the buried pyramids, about the one time I'd seen him riding over the tops of the pyramids, and I imagined him in the hut, when he was left alone and sat there smoking.”
― Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives

“Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American