The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Díaz

Homegirl was ’bout about it. Knew that when Gondolin falls you don’t wait around for the balrogs to tap on your door. You make fucking moves. And make moves she did.

Nothing more exhilarating (he wrote) than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

That’s life for you. All the happiness you gather to yourself, it will sweep away like it’s nothing. If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That’s enough.

Every snake always thinks it’s biting into a rat until the day it bites into a mongoose.

That’s who she was. Like they say: Plátano maduro no se vuelve verde.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

Each morning, before Jackie started her studies, she wrote on a clean piece of paper: Tarde venientibus ossa. To the latecomers are left the bones.

“No matter how far you travel…to whatever reaches of this limitless universe…you will never be…ALONE!” (The Watcher, Fantastic Four #13 May 1963.)