More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The pull of the familiar was strong, but stronger was curiosity and the blind optimism of youth that demanded go now, go quickly. Every child dreams of running away from home at some point, and now she had this impossible opportunity. Greedily she latched on to it.
money never leaves the grasp of the rich easily.
Mérida was changing, but Mérida was still a city where the moneyed, pale, upper-crust citizens dined on delicacies, and the poor went hungry.
a country in flux is a country padded with opportunities.
When war has knocked on one’s front door that many times, why should the minuscule daily ills matter?
Like many young people, ultimately she saw herself as a completely new creature, a creation that had sprung from no ancient soils.
She blinked and considered how ridiculous it was to be standing in an empty alley with an angry god when she ought to have been running in the other direction, far and away, back to the guesthouse, and maybe all the way back to her home.
The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries. Imagination had also fashioned the dwellings of the gods.
Everyone agrees that Mexico City is a vile cesspool, filled with tenements, criminals, and the most indecent lowbrow entertainment available. Paradoxically, everyone also agrees Mexico City exudes a peculiar allure, due to its wide avenues and shiny cars, its department stores filled to the brim with fine goods, its movie theaters showing the latest talkies. Heaven and hell both manifest in Mexico City, coexisting side by side.
“Dreams are for mortals.” “Why?” “Because they must die.”
Martín Leyva was indolent, proud, and cruel. His faults were not solely the result of an inherent nature. They had been honed and coaxed by his family, through explicit action and through lapses in judgment.
A god can make the volcanos boil and cook alive the villagers who have made their abodes near its cone, but what good is that? If gods destroyed all humans, there would be no adoration and no sacrifice, which is the fresh wood that replenishes a fire.
Ah, there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something, and a kingdom is no small something.
“Was I cruel? I was a god; you might as well ask the river if it is gentle in its path, or the hail whether it hurts the land when it strikes it.
“Young, as you are young. Look at you, like the dawn,” he said. “You can’t understand, of course, but one day you’ll want to be new again,” he continued. “You’ll wish to return to this moment of perfection when you were the embodiment of all promises.”
The nature of hate is mysterious. It can gnaw at the heart for an eon, then depart when one expected it to remain as immobile as a mountain. But even mountains erode.
