The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Díaz

It’s never the changes we want that change everything.

But folks always underestimate what the promise of a lifetime of starvation, powerlessness, and humiliation can provoke in a young person’s character.

And I wonder: What hurt him more? That I was never really his friend, or that I pretended to be?

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.

Ten million Trujillos is all we are.