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61 " There are fewer tourists than you typically encounter on the Malecón. The attacks at the Montmartre cabaret and the Tropicana have rattled nerves and people are on edge. Then there are the bombs exploding around the city at random intervals, interspersed between parties, elegant dinners and lunches, and trips to the beach. And Nero fiddled while Rome burned. "
― Chanel Cleeton , Next Year in Havana
62 " That's the thing with grief--you never know when it will sneak up on you. "
63 " You can’t live your life to please others if you’re not proud of yourself. "
64 " in Miramar. It’s loud, even in the hallway, the walls offering "
65 " Terrible things rarely happen all at once,” she answers. “They’re incremental, so people don’t realize how bad things have gotten until it’s too late. "
66 " All are equal, but some are more equal than others,” I muse. "
67 " Pablo holds the flower out to me, and I take it from his hands, the silk soft against my palm, the simple beauty of it tugging at my heart. I’m grateful for its resilience, that I won’t have to watch it age and turn to dust, that I may tuck the rose into a drawer somewhere and pull it out, stroking its petals when I feel the need to remember. "
68 " And so, the beauty of life here—the simplicity of it—is also the tragedy of it. "
69 " There is no home for us in a world where we can’t speak our minds for fear of being thrown in prison, where daring to dream is a criminal act, where you aren’t limited by your own ability and ambition, but instead by the whims of those who keep a tight rein on power. "
70 " Speaking words gives them an unimaginable power "
71 " welcomes the attention, "
72 " We can’t always know the people we love as well as we think we do, Marisol. Our love is tangled up in our expectations, our perception of reality. And you never know what people really think. They often keep their deepest emotions locked away. "
73 " Terrible things rarely happen all at once,” she answers. “They’re incremental, so people don’t realize how bad things have gotten until it’s too late. He swore up and down that he wasn’t a communist. That he wanted democracy. Some believed him. Others didn’t.” “Did you—” “Believe? Support Fidel then?” I nod. “No. "
74 " Does he feel it—this thing between us—too? "
75 " To be in exile is to have the things you love most in the world—the air you breathe, the earth you walk upon—taken from you. They exist on the other side of a wall—there and not—unaltered by time and circumstance, preserved in a perfect memory in a land of dreams. "
76 " how my body shifts once he’s around, my attention gravitating toward him. It seems supremely unfair that these pings of energy, these sparks flying around me, have found a target they cannot—and should not—have. "
77 " War is never anything other than bad, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. "
78 " voice cracks. “I haven’t seen them in a while, though. I’ve been away.” There’s a hint there, a thread of family discord I’m uncomfortably familiar with lingering behind his words. There are natural pauses in conversations when "
79 " They ensure we’re so preoccupied with the daily struggle that there’s little left over for the most important one, for taking control of our future. "
80 " It is much easier to forgive the stranger than it is one you love. "