Instead of finding himself in nerd heavenโwhere every nerd gets fifty-eight virgins to role-play withโhe woke up in Robert Wood Johnson with two broken legs and a separated shoulder, feeling like, well, he'd jumped off the New Brunswick train bridge.
Junot DiazLove is the great test of the human. The human is tested by our ability to withstand love. Love is so difficult, it is so challenging, it demands of us that we wreck it with ourselves. It demands of us an honesty that few of us could sustain.
Junot DiazAs a Dominican man, you're socialized to be a playboy. You spend a lot of time being taught that women are important, but without the really positive framework of why. You figure out quickly it's because of culo (ass). But there is a sense that it's not that simple.
Junot DiazYou keep waiting for the heaviness to leave you. You keep waiting for the moment you never think about the ex again. It doesn't come.
Junot DiazThere's a long-term tradition of white supremacy in this country. [Donald] Trump isn't something entirely new. But then there is the crisis for white supremacy in this country now where you have people of color standing up for themselves in ways that they've never stood up for themselves or at least standing up for themselves in a generational, novel way.
Junot Diaz