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81 " Communism? Most people have no idea what it is. I do not exaggerate. Look around this restaurant, ask any of these fine citizens. 'Excuse me, sir, I've been thinking of an idea, a bunch of working people owning the means of their own production. What do you make of that?' You know, he might be all for it. "
― Barbara Kingsolver , The Lacuna
82 " A lifetime of people, unconfirmed by their living presences, or photographs or descriptions in a notebook, can only skulk in the corners like ghosts. They shift like chimeras. Careful words of warning reverse themselves like truth and newspaper stories, becoming their own opposites. An imperfectly remembered life is a useless treachery. Every day, more fragments of the past roll around heavily in the chambers of an empty brain, shedding bits of color, a sentence or a fragrance, something that changes and then disappears. It drops like a stone to the bottom of the cave. "
83 " The talkers are rising above the thinkers. "
84 " This is how we celebrate the Day of the Dead in America: by turning up our collars against the scent of earthworms calling us home. "
85 " Yet I stake a claim, I am here, for I must be somewhere. But only as a child it seems, struggling to understand what every wife and gentleman passing on the street seems to know by rote. Whom to love, whom to castigate. "
86 " The war's [World War II] end has left America with loads of get-up-and-go, and no place to go. "
87 " Even the vendors sitting on stools around the periphery work steadily at connection, nodding at potential buyers, like a sewing machine prodding its needle into the cloth. "
88 " the unbearable persistence of hope "
89 " This household is like a pocketful of coins that jingled together for a time, but now have been slapped on a counter to pay a price. The pocket empties out, the coins venture back into the infinite circulation of currency, separate, invisible, and untraceable. "
90 " The radio is at the root of the evil, their rule is: No silence, ever. When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment's pause for gathering wisdom. Falsehood and inanity are preferable to silence. "
91 " I think most people are the same. Until they’ve gone somewhere. "
92 " Isn't it awfully sad to thing that's all history amounts to, just following the next stupid fashion? "
93 " God speaks for the silent man. "
94 " Eyes can pierce a skull. "
95 " Greatness is very boring. "
96 " It was a true conversation. About whether our ancestors had more important lives than we do. And how they've managed to trick us, if they did not. "
97 " What a knot of history one mistake can become. "
98 " A story is like a painting, Sóli. It doesn’t have to look like what you see out the window. "
99 " Even the bells from the churches have a conversation, all ringing at once. "
100 " Being a peacock is not the only way to hide yourself, Frida. A pigeon can hide. "