but back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.

When people are always telling you that you have to have a lot of women, women are very important, there's a chance that you might actually begin to observe them on a more fundamental level. Then you get so much focus that one day you might actually see. Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.

Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.

Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.

This country has such little sense of itself sometimes, I'm astonished. America is one of the biggest myth-making countries, whether we're talking about how many books are published, how many movies we make. But the greatest myth of all is what America is.

I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.

This is what I know: people's hopes go on forever.