“The good oneswho listento womento children and the poordie too soon,their lives bedeviledby opposition:our hearts grieve for them.This was the world my father knew.A poor manhe saw good men come and mostly go;leaving behindthe stranded and bereft.People of hopes, dreams, and so muchhard work!Yearning for a futuresuddenlyforeclosed.But todayyou write me all is welleven though the admirableHugo Chavezhas died this afternoon.Never again will we hear that voiceof reasoned angerand disgustof passionate visionand of triumph.This is true.But what a lot he did in his 58 years!You say.What a mighty ruckusHugo Chavez made!This is also true.Thank you for reminding me.That though life -this never-ending loop -has passed us by todaybut carried offin deatha heroof the massesit is his spiritof fiercely outspokencariñothat is not lost.That inheritancehas gone instantlyinto the peopleto whom he listenedand it is therethat we will expect itto riseas early astomorrow;and therethatwe will encounter italwayssoon again.”

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts...There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end,— [Sings.]“For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness. Song. And will a not come again? And will a not come again? No, no, he is dead; Go to thy deathbed; He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow, Flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ’a’ mercy on his soul.”

“He smiles, even though he knows it will never be like that again, even though he knows the world no longer wants what he has, what he loves, what he has devoted his life to building and maintaining. He lies in bed and stares at the photo and smiles. His brain says let it go, sell it. His heart says no. His sense of reason and his brain tell him to do it. His heart says no. Whenever he allows himself to hear it, his heart says no, no, no. All day long, everyday, his heart screams no. (…) he lies in bed and stares at the photo and smiles. His brain says let it go, sell it. His heart says no.His heart says no.”

“It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.It was not easy to leave.”

“You talk about trust, and you're the person I trust most in the world. The person I want at my back and by my side. I'd hoped to show you that on the island. I hoped to remind you what a good team we make. I wanted to ask you to come back to me and try again. I swear I'll listen to you, and work with you, and love you, and never take advantage again.”

“It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. He had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones.You kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. You were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it. But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you would leave it and write of it and for once it would be written by some one who knew what he was writing of. But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.”