Pedro Juan Gutiérrez · 392 pages
Rating: (2.7K votes)
“Life isn't long enough to enjoy and understand all at the same time. You have to decide which is more important”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“It's dizzying to think how huge the world is, or to realize how tiny you are”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“Cuba may be the only place in the world where you can be yourself and more than yourself at the same time”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“A man's allowed to make lots of small mistakes, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if the mistakes are big ones and they weigh him down, his only solution is to stop taking himself seriously. It's the only way to avoid suffering - suffering, prolonged, can be fatal.”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“Όταν της τον έβγαλα ήταν πασαλειμμένος με σκατά κι εκείνη αηδίασε. Εγώ όχι. Εγώ είχα πάντα σε εγρήγορση τον κυνισμό, δεν κοιμόταν ποτέ. Το θέμα είναι ότι το σεξ δεν είναι για ανθρώπους με αναστολές. Το σεξ είναι ανταλλαγή υγρών, ρευστών, σάλιου, ανάσας και δυνατών μυρωδιών, ούρων, σπέρματος, σκατών, ιδρώτα, μικροβίων, βακτηρίων. Αλλιώς δεν είναι. Εάν είναι μόνο τρυφερότητα και αιθέρια πνευματικότητα, τότε περιορίζεται σε μια στείρα παρωδία του τι θα μπορούσε να είναι. Τίποτα.”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“Gosto de ser belicoso, como bom filho de Ogum. Quando me virem tranquilo, é que já estou apodrecendo.”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“El hace que mi corazón deje de latir, me hace respirar superficialmente, hace que me den ganas de cantar.
Lo sé. Super cursi ¿Cierto?. Pero, Agh, es verdad.”
― Chelsea Fine, quote from Sophie & Carter
“He was like a nation in crisis, looking back, and back and back — its history might be ugly, but its past shone perfect.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“Follow your heart. Indulge your whims. They are usually correct. And when they are not, do not allow the world to judge you overly much.”
― James Conroyd Martin, quote from Push Not the River
“The hills below crouched on all fours under the weight of the rainforest where liana grew and soldier ants marched in formation. Straight ahead they marched, shamelessly single-minded, for soldier ants have no time for dreaming. Almost all of them are women and there is so much to do - the work is literally endless. So many to be born and fed, then found and buried. There is no time for dreaming. The life of their world requires organization so tight and sacrifice so complete there is little need for males and they are seldom produced. When they are needed, it is deliberately done by the queen who surmises, by some four-million-year-old magic she is heiress to, that it is time. So she urges a sperm from the private womb where they were placed when she had her one, first and last copulation. Once in life, this little Amazon trembled in the air waiting for a male to mount her. And when he did, when he joined a cloud of others one evening just before a summer storm, joined colonies from all over the world gathered fro the marriage flight, he knew at last what his wings were for. Frenzied, he flied into the humming cloud to fight gravity and time in order to do, just once, the single thing he was born for. Then he drops dead, having emptied his sperm into his lady-love. Sperm which she keeps in a special place to use at her own discretion when there is need for another dark and singing cloud of ant folk mating in the air. Once the lady has collected the sperm, she too falls to the ground, but unless she breaks her back or neck or is eaten by one of a thousand things, she staggers to her legs and looks for a stone to rub on, cracking and shedding the wings she will never need again. Then she begins her journey searching for a suitable place to build her kingdom. She crawls into the hollow of a tree, examines its walls and corners. She seals herself off from all society and eats her own wing muscles until she bears her eggs. When the first larvae appear, there is nothing to feed them, so she gives them their unhatched sisters until they are old enough and strong enough to hunt and bring their prey back to the kingdom. That is all. Bearing, hunting, eating, fighting, burying. No time for dreaming, although sometimes, late in life, somewhere between the thirtieth and fortieth generation she might get wind of a summer storm one day. The scent of it will invade her palace and she will recall the rush of wind on her belly - the stretch of fresh wings, the blinding anticipation and herself, there, airborne, suspended, open, trusting, frightened, determined, vulnerable - girlish, even, for and entire second and then another and another. She may lift her head then, and point her wands toward the place where the summer storm is entering her palace and in the weariness that ruling queens alone know, she may wonder whether his death was sudden. Or did he languish? And if so, if there was a bit of time left, did he think how mean the world was, or did he fill that space of time thinking of her? But soldier ants do not have time for dreaming. They are women and have much to do. Still it would be hard. So very hard to forget the man who fucked like a star.”
― Toni Morrison, quote from Tar Baby
“For me love is like this: you're in one room or apartment which you think is fine, then you walk through a door and close it behind you and find yourself in the next apartment, which is even better, larger, more floorspace, a better view. You're happy there and then you go into the next apartment and close the door and this one is even better. And the sequence continues, but with the odd feature that although this has happened to you a number of times, you forget: each time your new quarters are manifestly better and each time it's breathtaking, a surprise, something you've done nothing to deserve or make happen. You never intend to go from one room onward to the next—it just happens. You notice a door, you go through, and you're delighted again.”
― Norman Rush, quote from Mating
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