Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird

She was horrified by the traces of monstrosity in everyday life. The things that we look at but don't see, whose true essences are unknown to us.

They love one another because they repulse one another.

Outside the secure space of the circle, vulgarity accumulates. Ada loathes vulgarity because it's there that misery hides. She knows that misery is destructive and, as such, ephemeral.

Le horrorizaban los rasgos monstruosos de lo cotidiano. Esas cosas que miramos, pero no vemos, de las cuales no conocemos la verdadera esencia.

Three old women are walking together. Arm in arm they weave a symbiosis outside of time.

I learned the art of bringing laughter to those who can't stop crying.

Human beings are a mere parenthesis between two unknowns.

Ella le hubiese querido mostrar todas las anotaciones que había hecho al margen del libro de Faulkner, hablarle de todas las noches en las que deseó leerle párrafos enteros a alguien,

You look at Menéndez as though you’re seeing him for the first time, and you understand that the sound of the naked, toothless body belonging to the filthy old man that he was, the sound of him breaking on the blue tiles of your patio, encased you in anarchy, in the chaos originating in the neighbors who look at you with feigned pity and a certain cordial disdain, in the police who talk to you with words that are imperative, broken, mechanical, in the world that’s oppressively civilized and atrocious.

She stopped, as she always did when she located some object that was unchangeable but seemed alive. No one could be absolutely certain that an oval piece of ceramic wasn't alive. There was always something, a small detail, that gave her cause for doubt. She was horrified by the traces of monstrosity in everyday life. The things that we look at but don't see, whose true essences are unknown to us.

I dislike tan people, they walk around with dead skin on their bodies.

At the time, I didn't understand that her limitless fragility could hide an intelligence capable of determining the precise moment she would begin to ruin my life.

The wolf will kill you. It will devour you with its thoughts, find the sweet spot to savor you. It will measure your breath, calculate the exact moment to brush your veins with its fangs, to embrace you gently with its mouth.