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In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. —Albert Camus
Poor Mexico, so far from God and so near the United States. —Porfirio Díaz
“What’s that?” “A wall. Hell, almost fifty percent of the illegals in this country arrive by plane; they get a work visa or a tourist one and then they just stay.”
“They been shooting the drugs over the wall with T-shirt cannons, using remote-control planes, digging tunnels. . .
“The cartels and assassins I’d just as soon shoot on sight, but I can understand the immigrants. Most of these poor people are just looking for a little hope, a chance at a better life picking lettuce twelve hours a day at le...
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“Found a nine-year-old girl about three-quarters of a mile from here.” He gestured behind us. “Leg swole up like a salt-cured ham where she’d got hit by a big diamondback and then to add insult to injury, the damn thing curled up next to her to stay warm and
sleep through the night.” “She live?” He huffed a laugh. “No, and neither did the buzz worm once I got done with him.”
“Beware the man with only one weapon, for he surely knows
how to use it.”
“Riablo. In the beliefs of the Tarahumaras, the Riablo aligns himself with the devil but is not wholly evil; he works with God in aligning the balance of things in a sacrifice.”
Día de los Angelitos or the Day of the Little Angels or innocents, which pays honor to the deceased infants, followed by the Day of the Dead.” “Honoring adults?” “Yes.”
“The festival was originally at the beginning of summer and was the time of Aztec celebrations, but when the country was colonized by the
Spanish, it was moved. It was not very popular here in the north, but then the government made it a national holiday in an attempt to create a more centralized identity for the country.”
“What happens during this festival?” “The usual activities—religious ceremonies, a costume parade, sacrifices of food and drink to the dead, dancing, drinking
“Costumes?” “The Calaveras, where men and women dress up in traditional wardrobe and paint their faces like those of skulls.”
“Primitive, but damned capable these things. I think it was the Sikhs in the eighteenth century that came up with the basic design of the Sher Panja, but they really came into their own in our country during the Civil War. There wasn’t hardly a self-respecting soldier who didn’t have a set of these made out of brass or cast iron or even if they had to carve them out of wood or cast them out of lead bullets molded in dirt.”
bondad a un asesino construye ataúdes.”
“Kindness to a killer builds coffins.”
“Sometimes, when there aren’t any other options, you should just stay crazy.”
“Anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it.” “Did you just come in here to quote me Hemingway?”
Henry Standing Bear says that the greatest thing you can do to respect the dead is to remember them, to keep them in your mind so that they do not slip away
into that cold, dark infinity that awaits all of us.
Ninety-six men died building the Hoover Dam, but contrary to popular belief, none were buried in the concrete.
You find that kernel of madness at an early age, and if you’re lucky you start building up a callus around it, a tough layer of humanity that holds it at bay, because it’s just too dangerous to allow to escape. Your family can’t ever see it, your friends can’t ever see it, no one must ever see it—but it’s there, waiting to burn the protective covering away that has taken a lifetime to build and burst open like a volcanic canker of maniacal emotion.
The phoenix is the legendary bird with a brilliant plumage and a wondrous voice that rises from the pyre of its own ashes only to regenerate itself and fly to Heliopolis in Egypt to the Temple of R,
Egyptian god of the sun. A symbol of immortality and an allegory of resurrection,
