Dessie's friends were good and loyal but they were human, and humans love to feel good and they hate to feel bad. - John Steinbeck

لا احد يستطيع أن يعرف بالضبط أين الحقيقة و أين الخيال في حياتي أو في أية حياة أخرى، ولا احد يعرف أين الذي صنعته انأ و أين الذي صنعته الظروف، و أين الذي بقلمي و أين الذي بألمي و آلام الآخرين.

Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor … And since our race admires gallantry, the writer will deal with it where he finds it. He finds it in the struggling poor now.

Every man suddenly became related to Kino's pearl, and Kino's pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy. The news stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.