The tree of life knows that, whatever happens, the warm music spinning around it will never stop. However much death may come, however much blood may flow, the music will dance men and women as long as the air breaths them and the land plows and loves them.

I am not a historian. I am a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past

In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.

Each 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 people’s flames are so still they don’t 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 can’t look at them without blinking, and if you approach you shine in the fire.

I have never killed anybody, it is true, but it is because I lacked the courage or the time, not because I lacked the desire

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.

Most of wars or military coups or invasions are done in the name of democracy against democracy.