“Perdiste tu inocencia en el mundo de afuera. No podrás recuperarla aquí adentro, en el mundo de los afectos. Quizá tuviste tu jardín. Yo también tuve el mío, mi pequeño paraíso. Ahora ambos lo hemos perdido. Trata de recordar. No puedes encontrar en mí lo que ya sacrificaste, lo que ya perdiste para siempre y por tu propia obra. No sé de dónde vienes. No sé qué has hecho. Sólo sé que en tu vida perdiste lo que después me hiciste perder a mí: el sueño, la inocencia. Ya nunca seremos los mismos.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Tú y yo, miembros de esa masonería: la orden de la chingada. Eres quien eres porque supiste chingar y no te dejaste chingar; eres quien eres porque no supiste chingar y te dejaste chingar: cadena de la chingada que nos aprisiona a todos...”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“¿Morirás? No será la primera vez. Habrás vivido tanta vida muerta, tantos momentos de mera gesticulación”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Artemio Cruz...nombre..."inútil"..."corazón"..."masaje"..."inutil"...ya no sabrás...te traje adentro y moriré contigo...los tres...moriremos...Tú...mueres..has muerto...moriré”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“¿A poco no somos los meros chingones? ¿Sabes? Escoge siempre a tus amigos entre los grandes chingones, porque con ellos no hay quien te chingue a ti.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Quiza fue pudor. Quiza unas ganas de que este amor a oscuras fuese, de verdad, excepcional.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Vivir es traicionar a tu Dios; cada acto de la vida, cada acto que nos afirma como seres vivos, exige que se violen los mandamientos de tu Dios”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Tu valor será gemelo de tu cobardía, tu odio habrá nacido de tu amor, toda tu vida habrá contenido y prometido tu muerte; que no habrás sido bueno ni malo, generoso ni egoísta, entero ni traidor. Dejarás que todos los demás afirmen tus cualidades y tus defectos; pero tu mismo, ¿cómo podrás negar que cada una de tus afirmaciones se negará, que cada una de tus negaciones se afirmará?”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“-Esé es el drama. No hay más que ellos. No sé si te acuerdas del principio. Fue hace tan poco, pero parece tan lejano...cuando no importaban los jefes. Cuando esta se hacía no para elevar a un hombre, sino a todos”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“-Quisiera recordarte de pequeño. Te quise entonces, porque en la juventud una madre debe querer a todos sus hijos. De viejos sabemos mejor. No hay por qué querer a nadie sin razón. La sangre natural no es una razón. La única razón es la sangre amada sin razón.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Однажды утром ты встанешь — Я заставляю тебя вспоминать, — встанешь, посмотришь в зеркало и увидишь наконец, что кое-что осталось позади. Ты припомнишь этот первый день наступившей старости, первый день нового времени — отметь его. И ты отметишь, окаменев, как статуя, и отныне по-новому глядя на все вокруг себя.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Regina de la mirada soñadora y encendida.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“pesa de un lado mis culpas y del otro mi amor y verás que mi amor es más grande…”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“He thought that even naturalness can be feigned; at times, a mask disguises too well the expressions of a face that does not exist either outside or under it.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Pensarás que has hecho tantas cosas cobardes que el valor te resulta fácil.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
Carlos Fuentes
Born place: in Panama City, Panama
Born date November 11, 1928
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“Violet: "You're an asshole."
Onyx: "Thank you, it's something that took an eternity to perfect.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Enticed
“I can't wear thethe! I want my thtwipey oneth!”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from House of Many Ways
“Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.
“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”
“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”
And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.
The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.
One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.
They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.
Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.
One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:
She is the 100% perfect girl for me.
He is the 100% perfect boy for me.
But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don’t you think?”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from The Elephant Vanishes
“I prayed earnestly for this Sister who had caused me so much struggle, but this was not enough for me. I tried to do everything I possibly could for her, and when tempted to answer her sharply, I hastened to give her a friendly smile and talk about something else, for, as it says in The Imitation, “It is better to leave everyone to his own way of thinking than begin an argument.” (Imit., III, xliv, 1).”
― Thérèse de Lisieux, quote from Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
“When you have lived your individual life in your own adventurous way and then look back upon its course, you will find that you have lived a model human life, after all.”
― Joseph Campbell, quote from Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
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