Mario Vargas Llosa · 608 pages
Rating: (5.1K votes)
“Aquí cambian las personas, teniente, nunca las cosas.”
“I know what a man feels close to the woman he loves, but he's affraid to do anything”
“—Con dogmáticos o con inteligentes, el Perú estará siempre jodido —dijo Carlitos—. Este país empezó mal y acabará mal. Como nosotros, Zavalita.”
“Ninguna otra novela me ha dado tanto trabajo; por eso, si tuviera que salvar del fuego una sola de las que he escrito, salvaría ésta.”
“allí. Un gran canchón rodeado de un muro ruin de adobes color caca —el color de Lima, piensa, el color del Perú—, flanqueado por chozas que, a lo lejos, se van mezclando y espesando hasta convertirse en un laberinto de esteras, cañas, tejas, calaminas.”
“¿Quería de veras un consejo, piensa, sabía que estabas enamorado de ella y quería saber si te atreverías a decírselo? Qué habría dicho si yo, piensa, qué habría yo si ella. Piensa: ay, Zavalita.”
“¿En qué momento se había jodido el Perú?”
“automóviles, edificios desiguales y descoloridos, esqueletos de avisos luminosos flotando en la neblina, el mediodía gris. ¿En qué momento se había jodido el Perú?”
“Se había acordado de algo que le dijo Trifulcio esa noche, la víspera de su partida a Lima, cuando caminaban a oscuras: estoy en Chincha y siento que no estoy, reconozco todo y no reconozco nada.”
“Ya se sentía bastante jodido aquí, niño, allá ese día además de jodido se había sentido viejísimo.”
“Hasta la lluvia andaba jodida en este país. Piensa:”
“Friends?” He asked me offering his right hand.
“As long as you don't touch my pencils' box again,”
“That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.”
“She would see it as betrayal. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“I was doing it again, and I do NOT ogle strangers.”
“Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing more, though you might make it sound more important by calling him an animal painter;”
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