Its typical of Mexico, of the whole human race perhaps — violence in favour of an ideal and then the ideal lost but the violence just going on.

Rocinante was of more value for a true traveller than a jet plane. Jet planes were for business men.

...and yet could swear it was just then that I fell in love. It wasn't, of course, simply the onions -- it was the sudden sense of an individual woman, of a frankness that was so often later to make me happy and miserable.

He was like a child with haemophilia: every contact drew blood.

Lust is not the worst thing. It is because any day, any time, lust may turn into love that we have to avoid it. And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.

So long as one is happy one can endure any discipline: it was unhappiness that broke down the habits of work.

Who knows whether there may not be a moment in childhood when the world changes forever, like making a face when the clock strikes?