“Memory is a great deceiver, grief and longing cloud the past, and recollections, even vivid ones, fade.”

“What does the end of a war mean if not that one side ran out of men willing to die?”

“You don’t sound like a scientist, you sound like a poet.”Rey smiled, “Can I be both?”But you’d rather be a poet.”Who wouldn’t?” he said.”

“Are you a politician?I hate politicians, he said. And, in any case, there's no such thing anymore: only sycophants and dissidents.”

“They spoke of the crowds that had filled the plaza: the people, always myopic, always easy to fool.”

“What does a car bomb say about poverty, or the execution of a rural mayor explain about disenfranchisement?...The war had become, it it wasn't from the beginning, an indecipherable text.”

“Luz's manner of speaking made it clear that she had no idea what she might say next. It wasn't that she made things up, strictly speaking--only that facts were merely a point of departure for her.”