[Zack Bowen] "Damn, it's tough being a fag. People hate you who don't even know you, and the ones who know you, they're worse." - Michael Nava

[Alicia Gavilán] She had learned to distinguish between her personal thoughts and those thoughts that came to her like messages from a deeper source than her own personality. These deeper messages were sometimes consoling, but more often they had a challenging and unsettling quality. Her first impulse was always to resist them [...]. Yet as always happened, the thought simply repeated itself until she was forced to examine her reasons for rejecting it.

Lips pursed, Sara moved swiftly and rudely through the crowd of midday shoppers as we crossed the square. Sara'd been thin as a girl, but no more. Not quite fat, but the extra weight she carried blurred her features. Pouches of flesh had gathered beneath her eyes and her chin. Damp circles stained her armpits and the seat of her dress was deeply wrinkled. Her makeup was hit-and-miss and she had the look of someone who no longer cared much about her appearance.

[Madero] "An eye for an eye ends in blindness."