Carlos

“Lo vi haciendo planes, lo vi bebiendo apoyado en la ventana, lo vi recibiendo a Cesárea Tinajero que venía con una carta de recomendación de Manuel, lo vi leyendo un librito de Tablada, tal vez aquel en donde José Juan dice: "bajo el celeste pavor/ delira por la unica estrella/ el cántico del ruiseñor". Que es como decir, muchachos, les dije, que veía los esfuerzos y los sueños, todos confundidos en un mismo fracaso y ese fracaso se llamaba alegría. - R. Bolaño”
― Roberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives

“What am I dying for? he cried back. I’m dying because this world I’m living in isn’t worth dying for! If something is worth dying for, then you’ve got a reason to live.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“Do you know what happened the last time a nation listened to a bush?" Honey asks.
No one says a word.
"Its people wandered in the desert for forty years.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“My fear was not the fear of God but, as in the case of the whole Turkish secular bourgeoisie, fear of the anger of those who believe in God too zealously(...) I experienced the guilt complex as something personal, originated less from the fear of distancing myself from God than from distancing myself from the sense of community shared by the entire city .”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City