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" No man has ever laid a hand on me again since that time. My only man was Trujillo. It’s true. Whenever one gets close and looks at me as a woman, I feel sick. Horrified. I want him to die, I want to kill him. It’s hard to explain. I’ve studied, I work, I earn a good living. But I’m empty and still full of fear. Like those old people in New York who spend the whole day in the park, staring at nothing. It’s work, work, work until I’m exhausted. You have no reason to envy me, I assure you. I envy all of you. Yes, yes, I know, you have problems, hard times, disappointments. But you also have families, husbands, children, relatives, a country. Those things fill your life. But Papa and His Excellency turned me into a desert. "
― Mario Vargas Llosa , The Feast of the Goat
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" Religion gave him spiritual order, an ethical system with which to confront life. At times he doubted transcendence, he doubted God, but never the irreplaceable function of Catholicism as an instrument for the social restraint of the human animal’s irrational passions and appetites. And, in the Dominican Republic, as a constituent force for nationhood, equal to the Spanish language. Without the Catholic faith, the country would fall into chaos and barbarism. As for belief, he followed the recommendation of St. Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises: to behave as if one believed, miming the rites and precepts: Masses, prayers, confessions, communions. This systematic repetition of religious form gradually created the content, filling the void—at a certain point—with the presence of God. "
― Mario Vargas Llosa , The Feast of the Goat