The Chase Quotes

“In the simple movements that accompanied the Doxology, the Gospel, the Offertory, that prodigious sublimation of the elemental which, in architecture, had transformed the hunting trophy into a bucranium, had transformed the ring of twine that binds the sheaf of branches of the primitive saddle into an astragal of pure Pythagorean proportions.”
― Alejo Carpentier, The Chase

“The outcome has already been established in the afterwords — hoc erat in votis! — just as the ash is already in the wood about to kindle.”
― Alejo Carpentier, The Chase

“Prison, the supreme trap . . . where a language without words finally reveals to him the expiatory meaning of these last days.”
― Alejo Carpentier, The Chase