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The Old Gringo

by Carlos Fuentes · 1985

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers… more

6 quotes ★ 3.53 (4,000) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

Did you know we know we are all the object of another's imagination?
15
What is the strongest pretext for loving?...If it is necessary, our atomized consciousness invents love, imagines it or feigns it, but does not live without it, since in the midst of infinite dispersion, love, even if as a pretext , gives us the measure of our loss.
6
And the frontier in here?" the North American woman had asked, tapping her forehead. "And the frontier in hear?" General Arroyo had responded, touching his heart. "There's one frontier we only dare to cross at night," the old gringo said. "The frontier of our differences with others, of our battles with ourselves.
5
There are people whose external reality is generous because it is transparent, because you can read everything, accept everything, understand everything about them: people who carry their own sun with them.
2
Entonces el desierto le decía que la muerte es sólo una fatiga de las leyes de la naturaleza: la vida es la regla del juego, no su excepción, y hasta el desierto que parecía muerto escondía toda una minuciosa vida que prolongaba, originaba o remedaba las leyes de la existencia humana.
2
Each of us carries his Mexico and his United States within him, a dark and bloody frontier we dare to cross only at night.

About Carlos Fuentes

We have collected 23 quotes from 3 books by Carlos Fuentes on BookQuoters.

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About the book

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers, particularly his encounter with General Tomas Arroyo. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries (or, paradoxically, their intimacy) claims both men, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict.

Book details

First published
1985
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.53 (4k ratings)

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