ZeroZeroZero Quotes

“…I still have some respect. Respect for those who read. For those who snatch important time from their lives so as to construct a new one. Nothing is more powerful than reading; no one is a greater liar than he who holds that reading a book is a passive gesture…Reading is a dangerous act, because it gives shape and dimension to words, it incarnates and disperses them in all directions. It turns everything upside down and makes change and tickets and lint fall out of the pockets of the world…to know is the first step toward change. My respect goes to those people who don’t throw these stories away, who don’t neglect them, who make them their own. Those who feel the words on their skin, who carve them in their flesh, who build a new vocabulary – they are altering the direction of the world, because they have understood how to be in it.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zerozerozero: Look at Cocaine and All You See Is Powder. Look Through Cocaine and You See the World

“The rules of the game have changed. The number of players has increased. New cartels spring up quickly, devouring territories and entire regions. It’s crazy making, all these new cartels. More flexible structures, faster responses, familiarity with new technology, ostentatiously lurid killings, and obscure, pseudoreligious philosophies. It is altogether a new level of frenzy.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“Las mafias no temen a los escritores; temen a los lectores.”
― Roberto Saviano, CeroCeroCero

“To square the circle of the world in your own interpretations is the onset of shortsightedness in an eye that thinks it has perfect vision.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“On September 11, 2004, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes—he and his brother Vicente ruled the Juárez cartel—was killed in the parking lot outside a multiplex cinema in Culiacán, in the heart of Sinaloa territory.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“Existem dois tipos de riqueza. A que conta o dinheiro e a que pesa o dinheiro. Se o segundo tipo de riqueza não te pertence, então não sabes o que é verdadeiramente o poder. (…) Se contas o dinheiro, ou não tens nenhum ou não o tens em quantidade suficiente. Só se fores capaz de o pesar é que poderás ter a certeza do teu próprio peso.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“«En el corazón de todo hombre existe el deseo desesperado de una batalla que librar, una aventura que vivir y una belleza que salvar.»”
― Roberto Saviano, CeroCeroCero

“Getting drugs to Europe is easier than you’d think. All you need is a commercial flight, a passenger, and an indefinite amount of cocaine safely stored in special wrapping in the bottom of his stomach. Sure, it’s happened that the wrapping breaks during the flight and the mule spends hours in excruciating pain before landing in Lisbon as a cadaver. But most shipments are successful, in part because modern wrapping materials are resistant to gastric acid, to the point that you need to cut them with a knife to open them after they’ve been expelled,. They used to use condoms, but that’s prehistory.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zero Zero Zero

“No business in the world is so dynamic, so relentlessly innovative, so loyal to the pure free market spirit as the global cocaine business. This is the reason cocaine became the merchandise par excellence at a time when markets began being dominated by stocks that were inflated with empty numbers, or securities as intangible as those driven by the new economy, which sold communication and make-believe.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zero Zero Zero

“People never stop dying, and mafias worldwide have their hands in the funeral trade. They’re an excellent money-laundering tool and a fine cornerstone for building a fortune. Mafias never renounce concreteness. Tangible things. Earth, water, cement, hospitals, the dead.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zero Zero Zero

“In the advanced West they’ve closed the factories, and consumption is nourished through forms of debt such as credit cards, leasing, installment payments, and financing. Who, on the other hand, earns the biggest profits from merchandise that must be paid for in full right away? Narco-traffickers. Real mafia money can make the difference to the survival of the financial system. That’s the danger.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zero Zero Zero

“The evil must be eliminated at its source, in other words, in Colombia. This is the fundamental error at the base of the United States’ efforts. You can rip up a plant, but you can’t uproot the desire for well-being that leads to addiction, any more than you can eradicate greed. Cocaine is the fruit not of the earth but of man.”
― Roberto Saviano, Zero Zero Zero

“México es el origen de todo. El mundo en el que ahora respiramos es China, es la India, pero es también México. Quien no conoce México no puede entender cómo funciona hoy la riqueza en este planeta. Quien ignora a México no entenderá nunca el destino de las democracias transfiguradas por los flujos del narcotráfico.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“Puedes extirpar una planta, no un deseo de bienestar que crea dependencia y aún menos la avidez humana. La cocaína no es un producto de la tierra, sino de los hombres.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“La cocaína no es un producto de la tierra, sino de los hombres.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“Existen dos clases de riquezas. Las que cuentan el dinero y las que lo pesan. Si el tuyo no es el segundo tipo de riqueza, no sabes qué es realmente el poder.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero

“Nada é credível para um narco, se não for pago. Quanto mais alto for o preço, maior confiança transmite.”
― Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero