" Anyone familiar with the darker side of life understands that a man who has lost his shadow is like a woman with a dark past who marries: no one is more loyal, because she knows how much is at stake.

Whispered words like moans sliding over naked skin.

It was in such places that you learned the philosophy of the different races: the melancholy Italians, suspicious Jews, Brutal Germans, and stubborn Spaniards, intoxicated with envy and murderous pride.

The spiteful resentment that we women often resort to when we are in pain.

Elegance could be acquired through money, education, hard work and intelligence.

Doubt is what keeps people young. Certainty is like a malignant virus that infects us as we get older.

Spain: that sad, embittered country, reeking of the sacristy and run by black marketeers and mediocre ruffians. The paradise of envy, barbarity and treachery.

One of those men who use others as a pretext to talk about themselves.

How flimsy the ties are that prevent human beings from lying or betraying.

Women are the only worthwhile temptation. Everything else is negotiable.

After all, like the rest of womankind, she only needed persuading. "

― Arturo Pérez-Reverte , El tango de la Guardia Vieja