“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”

“Men of God and men of war have strange affinities.”

“The names of the cerros and the sierras and the deserts exist only on maps. We name them that we do not lose our way. Yet it was because the way was lost to us already that we have made those names. The world cannot be lost. We are the ones. And it is because these names and these coordinates are our own naming that they cannot save us. They cannot find for us the way again.”

“Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.”

“He poured the tumbler full. Drink up, he said. The world goes on. We have dancing nightly and this night is no exception. The straight and the winding way are one and now that you are here what do the years count since last we two met together? Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.”

“And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of [the strangers'] smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had the power to heal men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.”

“Ah, they said. Qué bueno. And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to hear men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.”