We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn't for our longing for these things, I doubt the novel or the short story would exist in its current form. I'm not going to say much more on the topic. Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.

She smelled like herself, like the wind through a tree.

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

You whispered my full name and we fell asleep in each other's arms and I remember how the next morning you were gone, completely gone, and nothing in my bed or the house could have proven otherwise.

Love is the only thing - I don't want to say that "makes it bearable" - but I feel like without the possibility of love, this place would just devour us.

Instead of lowering your head and copping to it like a man, you pick up the journal as one might hold a bady's beshattered diaper, as one might pinch a recently benutted condom. You glance at the offending passages. Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.

Here at last is her smile: burn it into your memory; you won't see it often.