“Translation is a notoriously thankless profession: there is absolutely no money in it; it involves a severe submersion of the self into another; the hours are long and you get about as much recognition for your efforts as the telephone repairman.”
“Well, one of the things I discovered in the course of looking back and writing about what I saw in my memory is that I was a closely observant person long before I became a reporter.”
“These kids who have no place in the world, who nobody has ever made room for, look at least for a place in time, in the present through fashion. It's vitally important to them to look right. When they get money from a job, they spend it immediately on something for their mothers and on clothes. Of course they're not going to have any respect for their fathers, in their shabby old backcountry suits!”
“Apologists for the drug trade often argue that the upper classes and the political establishment in Bogota would never have opposed the drug trade if it had not enabled former punks and small-time hoods to buy property in the posh neighborhoods, and they may be right.”
“I believe in reincarnation and communication with the spirits. But I also believe in the founding principles of Marxism-Leninism. Where is it written that you have to be coherent?”
