I’m seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I’m in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I’m an orphan, and someday I’ll be a lawyer. That’s what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.

Only in chaos are we conceivable.

When you die of sorrow it's as if you've broken all the bones in your body, bruised yourself all over, cracked your skull. That's sorrow.

Death, in the Eastern tradition, was only a passage. What wasn't clear ... was toward what place, what reality, that passage led.

Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.

If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.

For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths.