Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.
Eduardo GaleanoWriting is a marvelous adventure and very labor-intensive: those words run away and try to escape. They are very difficult to capture.
Eduardo GaleanoIf the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn't we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?
Eduardo GaleanoEach person shines with his or her own light. No two flames are alike. There are big flames and little flames, flames of every color. Some peopleโs flames are so still they donโt even flicker in the wind, while others have wild flames that fill the air with sparks. Some foolish flames neither burn nor shed light, but others blaze with life so fiercely that you canโt look at them without blinking, and if you approach you shine in the fire.
Eduardo GaleanoI'm not asking you to describe the rain falling the night the archangel arrived; I'm demanding that you get me wet. Make up your mind, Mr. Writer, and for once in your life be the flower that smells rather than the chronicler of the aroma. There's not much pleasure in writing what you live. The challenge is to live what you write.
Eduardo Galeano