koyuki’s Reviews > The Labyrinth of the Spirits > Status Update

The most sincere pain is experienced alone. Alicia felt secretly relieved when Isaac took his infinite sadness to a corner to drown in it. The only pain she hadn’t learned to tolerate was to see old people cry.

On his way to what might well be the last day in his short life, he told himself that, thanks to Alicia, he had at least learned two things that would serve him forever - if he lived to tell the story, that is. The first was how to lie. The secord, and this te was still smarting from, was that promises were a bit like hearts once the first was broken, breaking the rest was a piece of cake.

Those thoughts, no deeper than a cup of coffee, usually came to Fermín in the small hours of the night, when his body was tired of tossing and turning but his head kept on spinning like a top.