Important Quotations Explained
1. For
him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere,
then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever
to nowhere . . .
2. .
. . [Y]ou felt that you were taking part in a crusade. . . . [It] would
be as difficult and embarrassing to speak about as a religious experience
and yet it was authentic. . . . It gave you a part in something
that you could believe in wholly and completely and in which you
felt an absolute brotherhood with the others who were engaged in
it.
3. We
do it coldly but they do not, nor ever have. It is their extra sacrament.
. . . They are the people of the Auto de Fé; the act of faith. Killing
is something one must do, but ours are different from theirs.
4. “Pasionaria
says âBetter to die on thy—'” Joaquín was saying to himself as the
drone came nearer them. Then he shifted suddenly into “Hail Mary,
full of grace, the Lord is with thee. . . .”
5. He
was completely integrated now and he took a good long look at everything.
Then he looked up at the sky. There were big white clouds in it.
He touched the palm of his hand against the pine needles where he
lay and he touched the bark of the pine trunk that he lay behind.
