Certain Dark Things Quotes

“There is a point when a man may swim back to shore, but he was past it. There was nothing left but to be swallowed by the enormity of the sea.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“There is a phrase, atl tlachinolli, ‘the water that scorches the earth.’ My name means ‘water’ but it is also war.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“It turned out to be a crock of shit. They had printed manuals with gender-appropriate terminology and the like, but detectives still called gay men “faggots,” women were “bitches,” and if a “lady” was raped the first question to ask was what she’d done to incite the crime.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Don't deceive yourself...this is not a love story.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Vampires drained you one way or another.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Love is a strange thing to us. We do not revel in it. We only know hunger.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“She turned her head a fraction of an inch, her eyes very dark, pools of ink, silencing him. She did not say a word. In her eyes he read the answer to the question she had not allowed him to ask. No one had ever looked at him like that. Like he was every star shining down on them that night and the ground beneath her feet, and every other ridiculous phrase found in books that he’d never believed could possibly be true. And he knew she hated herself in
that moment and he knew she loved him precisely because she did not speak a single word.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“We can only pay our debts with blood. The ultimate gift is always blood.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“She had to be good because she was pretty and young and his friend. Right?”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“He looked down when those boys went by, his hair falling over his face, and they didn’t see him, because nobody saw him. It was just like with the regular passengers; Domingo melted into the tiles, the grime, the shadows.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“My apologies. Time and isolation do strange things. Of course, the levels of serotonin do not help,” the vampire said. “The what?” Domingo asked. “Serotonin. A neurotransmitter. The low levels in our brains make us violent, impulsive, self-destructive. It’s worse in some types than others.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“He probably didn’t know Aztecs from Mayans. None of the gods, none of the mythology, none of the names she’d learned since childhood. There had been vampires in America before the Aztecs rose to power, and they had interacted with humans, of course. But the Tlahuelpocmimi had blended so seamlessly into Aztec culture it was difficult to determine who had influenced whom, whether the emphasis on blood and sacrifice had come from exposure to the vampires or whether the vampires had gravitated toward this tribe because it meshed with their worldviews.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Nothing is easier." Elisa said. “It’s just another way to get killed.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Once inside she hesitated, and in addition to the cigarettes grabbed a diet soda and a yellow puff pastry wrapped in cellophane. She doubted it contained a single natural component, but sometimes synthetic is what you are after.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Unlike European vampires, Atl could handle the sun, though it weakened her. It required too much energy to move through the city in the daytime.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Sacrifice. The face of all earthly things at one point is sacrifice. She’d never known what that really meant, parroting the words of others, and now she understood.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“She was a girl. A girl who had played at murder and only succeeded in getting her sister killed in the process. A girl who could not be relied on to provide good counsel. A girl who ran off into the night, launched herself into a wild escape. A girl who was sick and tired. A girl who couldn’t pretend she was a tough cookie who could get through this intact.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Looking at her, he thought of smoke, of incense and altars, and the painting of a girl he’d seen in a discarded museum catalogue.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“One moment he was flinching and the next there was a slow, sweet wave that dragged him down ... it was a haze. The haze you experience when your eyes are heavy and you are about to fall asleep, where your limbs are tired, and your whole body is weighed down, and there is this soft pleasant sensation as you surrender to exhaustion.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“There were bland photos of boats and landscapes with the words RELAXATION and MEDITATION printed beneath them. There was also a poster about Jesus and footsteps in the sand, as if banality could be exponentially increased.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“It’ll be strange being so far from Mexico.”

“Having second thoughts?” She peeled off the nightgown and put on the trousers. He was looking at her.

“No,” he said simply. “I don’t have no one here.”

I don't have anyone either, she thought. Perhaps that was why she’d let herself be swept into this. He hadn’t seduced her, not by far, but she’d been seduced anyway by the thoughts of comfort and companionship. Her family was gone, her home razed. She must scrub herself of her name, her identity, her very self. She had a need for an anchor, a friendly face.

Weak, she thought. You are no warrior, never will be.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Mexico City was an apocalyptically dysfunctional place at the best of times, what with the pollution, the flooding, the teetering concrete slums, and the city sinking into the lake bed upon which it was built. However, that day, with the sun hiding behind thick clouds and the rain coming down so heavily, it was damn hellish. Rodrigo wished he could head home, back to the sunny, arid North. But there was too much work to be done.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Under those fucking circumstances, you had to try to give your child an edge or they were going to be trampled upon by the richer kids from the Tec or the Anahuac; kids who had lighter skin, heavier wallets, and the right last names. No, Marisol needed this high school. If only Ana could afford it. Money was tight.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“they didn’t see him, because nobody saw him. It was just like with the regular passengers; Domingo melted into the tiles, the grime, the shadows.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“There is a phrase, ātl tlachinolli, ‘the water that scorches the earth.’ My name means ‘water’ but it is also war.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Domingo didn’t want to say that everyone was an asshole, but many people are assholes when you’re living in the streets.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Kika changed seats, pulling a chair and joining Ana at her table. Gang member, very likely, even if she seemed to dabble in unorthodox outfits. Not that Ana wanted that to be the case, but the way this conversation was going there were few other options to consider, though movie extra from a remake of Gilda might fit the bill. She had the femme fatale aura down pat.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“Employers advertised jobs in Mexico by specifying the age and even goddamn school a kid had to have graduated from. No students from the UNAM, no one over thirty-four, no married people, no kids, send a photograph, and indicate religion. Under those fucking circumstances you had to try to give your child an edge or they were going to be trampled upon by the richer kids from the Tec or the Anahuac; kids who had lighter skin, heavier wallets, and the right last names.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things

“This was more than a pact; it was a true connection. Once she gave him this, she could not take it away. There should have been a selection process, a ceremony, the burning of copal. She was going at it wrong and she was too young to have a tlapalēhuiāni. The Aztecs did not consider a warrior a man until he had captured his first prisoner of war. Her people did not think a warrior was a woman until she had made an honorable kill or pleased the gods with her deeds. Youths had no business with a tlapalēhuiāni. Fuck it.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things