The orange of the golden carp appeared at the edge of the pond. . . . We watched in silence at the beauty and grandeur of the great fish. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw Cico hold his hand to his...
Bah! Do you think the poor people of the barrio pay for the upkeep of the Church? No! Wealth flows from wealth! And sources of wealth need stability to exist! And the Church provides stability! We tea...
Those sons of bitches up there are to blame!' Another worker shouted and jumped forward. He shook an angry fist at the blank faces that looked down on the death scene from the offices atop the yard ad...
I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things.
Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, and the gurgling waters of the river sang to the hum of the turning earth. The...
From my mother I had learned that man is of the earth, that his clay feet are part of the ground that nourishes him, and that it is this inextricable mixture that gives man his measure of safety and s...
The sun was good. The men of the llano were men of the sun. The men of the farms along the river were men of the moon. But we were all children of the white sun.
We don’t need the gospels, we need the fiery men who wrote them!
There is a time in the last few days of summer when the ripeness of autumn fills the air.
The germ of creation lies in violence.
Look, I control a large part of this barrio because I control one thing, credit. That’s right, it’s that simple. Credit is the lifeline, the blood that turns the wheels. In Barelas I control it, but o...
We prayed until our faith passed into an exhaustion that numbed us to sleep.
He started from nothing, I hear say, and now he’s got the only supermarket in the barrio. He has a big Cadillac car, and a lot of political connections at City Hall. They say he delivers the barrio’s...
Ay, every generation, every man is a part of his past. He cannot escape it, but he may reform the old materials, make something new
That’s what the welfare people want,' Tranquilino gritted his teeth, 'to have us on welfare and to have our women working. Then they can point to our broken families and say the mexicano is a lazy, no...
It seemed the more I knew about people the more I knew about the strange magic hidden in their hearts.
What greater good could there be in a man’s life than to lift the oppression that destroys them, what greater honor is there?
Good is always stronger than evil. Always remember that...The smallest bit of good can stand against the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant.
It is good to die on a hill of the llano, beneath the juniper
Why are they like that? I asked Cico. We skirted Blue Lake and worked our way through the tall, golden grass to the creek. I don’t know, Cico answered, except that people, grown-ups and kids, seem to...