34
" He always found it a miracle that anyone wanted his company. Women especially— men will cuddle a rock. When he first started getting laid he couldn’t quite believe that the women in his bed weren’t there by mistake. Sometimes he’d leave the room and then peer back in, and then peer in again, incredulous that a woman was actually lying there naked, waiting for him. As if. In time he found his thing: fly in like a fool to start, then turn on the silver tongue. Talk and cock, talk and cock, yessir. One time a girl confessed that Vicky, his friend the nurse, had given her a warning before she introduced them. Take one look and if you don’t like what you see don’t even say hi or you’ll end up wanting to fuck. Best thing anyone ever said about him. It didn’t matter that they never came back, or rarely. He didn’t mind being disposable. "
― Yuri Herrera , The Transmigration of Bodies
40
" Makina had no idea what so-called respectable people were referring to when they talked about Family. She's known families that were truncated, extended, bitter, friendly, guileful, doleful, hospitable, ambitious, but never had she known a Happy Family of the sort people talked about, the sort so many swore to defend; all of them were more than just one thing, or they were all the same thing but in completely different ways: none were only the fun-loving or solely stingy, and the stories that made any two laugh had nothing in common.
She'd seen people who'd run off to save their families and others who'd run off to be saved from them. Families full of endless table chat as easygoing as families that loved each other without words. "
― Yuri Herrera , Signs Preceding the End of the World