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101 " War is the supreme mathematics problem. It strains our skulls, yet we work out the sums, believing we have pressed the most monstrous quantities into a balanced equation "
― Barbara Kingsolver , The Lacuna
102 " We cater to the better class of gentile clientele. We reserve the right to decline service to anyone we deem to be incompatible. "
103 " The best artifact was the calendar of the ancients, a great carved piece of stone as big as a kitchen, circular, bolted to the wall like a giant clock. In the center was an angry face looking out, as if he'd come through that stone from some other place to have a look at us, and not very pleased about it. "
104 " Sometimes the past can vanish. "
105 " Her name, he says like the Lord's taken in vain. Sometimes he says "Mexico," and the word has nothing in it at all. A wall with no colors painted on it. "
106 " According to her, if he hasn't been dead twenty years, he isn't history. "
107 " The purpose of art is to elevate the spirit or to pay a surgeon’s bill. Or both. It can help a person remember or forget. "
108 " It was his habit, when he rewrote anything, to shed himself of all earlier versions. He kept a clean house. "
109 " Life proceeds, it enrages. "
110 " You can resign from the Woman's Club, but the world is all, you can't just stop attending. "
111 " Tomorrow these villagers would carry their secret icons into the church without any priest and light the candles themselves, moving together in single-minded grace. Like the school of the fish, so driven to righteousness they could flout the law, declare the safety of their souls, then go home and destroy the evidence. "
112 " Today at the Melchor market, a fantastical sight. A servant girl with a birdcage on her back, full of birds. She wore her blue shawl wrapped around the cage and tied in front to hold it. The willow cage must have been very light because she was not bent over, yet it towered over her head, with turrets like a Japanese pagoda. And full of birds: green and yellow, flapping about like dreams trying to escape from a skull. "
113 " When he marched to the altar, all the women in smart hats leaned away from the aisle, their long strands of pearls all swaying to one side as if the deck of a ship listed beneath them. "
114 " There will never be another Frida. "
115 " Heroes may be less than heroic, while the common man saves the day. "
116 " The rule of fishes is the same as the rule of people: if the shark comes, they will all escape, and leave you to be eaten. They share a single jumpy heart that drives them to move all together, running away from danger just before it arrives. Somehow they know. Underneath "
117 " Isn't it crazy? Rich people in the United States don't even know how to use money properly. "
118 " The longer the sauce cooks, the spicier it gets. "
119 " Priests were illegal, saying the mass was illegal, all banned by the Revolution. "
120 " You just read your books and go on a hundred miles away, You ignore me. "