Sixto Ortiz

“Turning off the electric light he continued the conversation with himself. It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. What did he fear? It was not fear or dread. It was a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada. Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. He smiled and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

“Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Desde mi habitación veo la ciudad, imperfecta, dura y alegre. Me siento cómodo en un lugar así. Me gustan las ciudades a medio terminar, como la mía. El primer mundo, como lo llaman me hace sentir inútil e incompleto.”
― Luis Negrón, Los tres golpes

“Yo me atreví. Esa es la escuálida línea que nos separa.”
― Josué Montijo, El Killer