The Sound of Things Falling

by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Experience, or what we call experience, is not the inventory of our pains, but rather the learned sympathy towards the pain of others.

convinced, as only new lovers can be, that saying what you wanted was the same as saying who you were.

Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, and perhaps even depends on it.

Disillusion comes sooner or later, but it always comes, it doesn’t miss an appointment, it never has. When it arrives we receive it without too much surprise, for no one who lives long enough can be surprised to find their life has been moulded by distant events, by other people’s wills, with little or no participation from their own decisions.