On The Plain Of Snakes: A Mexican Journey

by Paul Theroux

I was reminded again of how “the past of a place survives in its poor”—how the poor tend to keep their cultural identity intact. They depend on its compass and continuity and its pleasures for their self-esteem, while the rising classes and the rich tend to rid themselves of their old traditions, except in a showy or ritualized way, because they became wealthy by resisting them and breaking rules.

“the power we get through words . . . to write so that death doesn’t have the last word.”