“Kings may usurp thrones, republics may be established, but the town scarcely stirs. Plassan sleeps while Paris fights.”
“But when you talk about destruction, don t you know that you can count me out.”
“It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.”
“It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others. He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt. But on an occasion such as this it was different, for the spirit of convention was being rigorously adhered to, and in between his ribs Mr. Flay experienced twinges of pleasure.”
“Para que los pasos no me lloren, para que las palabras no me sangren: canto. Para tu rostro fronterizo del alma que me ha nacido entre las manos: canto. Para decir qe me has crecido clara en los huesos más amargos de la voz: canto. Para que nadie diga: ¡tierra mía!, con toda la decisión de la nostalgia: canto. Por lo que no debe morir, tu pueblo: canto. Me lanzo a caminar sobre mi voz para decirte: tú, interrogación de frutas y mariposas silvestres, no perderás el paso en los andamios de mi grito, porque hay un maya alfarero en tu corazón, que bajo el mar, adentro de la estrella, humeando en las raíces, palpitando mundo, enreda tu nombre en mis palabras. Canto tu nombre, alegre como un violín de surcos, porque viene al encuentro de mi dolor humano. Me busca del abrazo del mar hasta el abrazo del viento para ordenarme que no tolere el crepúsculo en mi boca. Me acompaña emocionado el sacrificio de ser hombre, para que nunca baje al lugar donde nació la traición del vil que ató tu corazón a la tiniebla, ¡negándote!”
“The Peruvian flute music is . . . cool. In this music, they have not yet invented the industrial revolution that leads to excessive punctuality or the failed experiment they call the nuclear family. This is the music of elements, untarnished, unrehearsed.”
“The right to make revolution is unconditional, for it alone establishes right.”
“It sounded like walls tumbling, liberty bells chiming, government buildings being stormed. It sounded like a revolution. It sounded like hope.”
“Beautiful people don t need coats. They ve got their auras keeping them warm.”
“Identifying who began something like this is like picking out the stone that began an avalanche. It began somewhere, true enough [...] but once it well and truly begins, we are all just stones moving together. One stone rolling down a mountain changes nothing unless others move with it.”
“Revolutions spring not from accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the factitious to the real. It takes place because it must.”
“To call the population of strangers in the midst of which we live society is such a usurpation that even the sociologists wonder if they should abandon a concept that was, for a century, their bread and butter. Now they prefer the metaphor of a network to describe the connection of cybernetic solitudes, the intermeshing of weak interactions under names like colleague, contact, buddy, acquaintance, or date. Such networks sometimes condense into a milieu, where nothing is shared but codes, and where nothing is played out except the incessant recomposition of identity.”
“Anarchy is like custard cooking over a flame; it has to be constantly stirred or it sticks and gets heavy, like government.”
“It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves Government! The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy. It has been going on for years, I said. And it only occurred to relatively few to disobey and make what they call revolutions. If they won their revolutions, which they occasionally did, they made more governments, sometimes more cruel and stupid than the last. Men are very difficult to understand, said Carmella. Let s hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen, and parliaments.”
“Grease the guillotine with the fat of tyrants. Pull the concubine out of the clergyman`s bed. Monarch`s blood must flow, as thick as our boots. From there the free republic will rise.”
“I have always thought that in revolutions, especially democratic revolutions, madmen, not those so called by courtesy, but genuine madmen, have played a very considerable political part. One thing is certain, and that is that a condition of semi-madness is not unbecoming at such times, and often even leads to success.”
“In reality, though, the first thing to ask of history is that it should point out to us the paths of liberty. The great lesson to draw from revolutions is not that they devour humanity but rather that tyranny never fails to generate them.”