The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

yet this world seemed strangely familiar to him; he had the overwhelming feeling that he’d been in this very place, a long time ago. It was worse than déjà vu, but before he could focus on it the moment slipped away, drowned by his fear,

there was only a lone man sitting in his rocking chair out in front of his ruined house and for a moment Oscar could have sworn the dude had no face, but then the killers got back into the car and drove.

Mine ain’t the scariest, the clearest, the most painful, or the most beautiful.

It just happens to be the one that’s got its fingers around my throat.

When you’re sixteen a body like this is free; when you’re forty—pffft!—it’s a full-time occupation.

What Hatüey said on that pyre is a legend in itself: Are there white people in Heaven? Then I’d rather go to Hell.

When the woman in front turned around and said: Tell that girl of yours to be quiet, she said, Tell that culo of yours to stop stinking.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

Lola. Nothing more exhilarating (he wrote) than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

I might have no one in the world, but at least I’m free.

are, mi negrita, una tormenta en la madrugada.)