Betzabeth Alarcon Quotes

Nothing builds community like complaining. ~ Daniel Alarcon

A man should cause an impression," she said. "He should leave you with something to think about. Without that, there's no magic. ~ Daniel Alarcon

They spoke of the crowds that had filled the plaza: the people, always myopic, always easy to fool. ~ Daniel Alarcon

At the most basic level, I appreciate writers who have something to say. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I carry my roots with me all the time rolled up, I use them as my pilllow. ~ Francisco X. Alarcon

I think that the future belongs to democracy, but not to capitalism, because they are opposite camps. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

Fidel is really a special case. He's a personality of history. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

The phone collapsed distances, just as the radio did, and, like the radio, it relied on the miracle of imagination: one had to concentrate deeply, plunge headlong into it. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Heartbreak is like shattered glass: while it's impossible that two pieces could splinter in precisely the same pattern, in he end, it doesn't matter, because the effect is identical. ~ Daniel Alarcon

The impact of any particular writer on your own work is hard to discern. ~ Daniel Alarcon

The obligation of the state is to guarantee freedom of religion, and that implies dealing with all of them on an equal footing. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

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. ~ Daniel Alarcon

The bond between parent and child is chemical, fierce, and inexplicable, even if that parent is a sworn killer. This connection cannot be measured; it at once more subtle and more powerful than science. ~ Daniel Alarcon

For fiction, I'm not particularly nationalistic. I'm not like the Hugo Chavez of Latin American letters, you know? I want people to read good work. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I like radio because you can do an hour-long interview and then three days later have a finished piece. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Ask any human being alive if they're the same person they were seven years ago and they're going to tell you they aren't. ~ Daniel Alarcon

What I'm most interested in is not necessarily the wound, but the scar. Not how someone is wounded, but what the scar does later. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Writing an op-ed feels like I'm taking the SAT. It's so hard. It feels like homework. And if it feels like homework, it just doesn't get done. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I write in English because I was raised in the States and educated in this language. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Publication in 'The New Yorker' meant everything, and it's no exaggeration to say that it changed my life. ~ Daniel Alarcon

It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art. ~ Daniel Alarcon

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. ~ Daniel Alarcon

The city was lovely. There could be no place in the world to which he belonged so completely.
That was why he'd always dreamed of leaving, and why he'd always been so afraid to go. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Peru is a country where more than half the people would emigrate if given the chance. That's half the population that is willing to abandon everything they know for the uncertainty of a life in a foreign land, in another language. ~ Daniel Alarcon

A novel is like an animal you have to hunt down and kill. If you let it sit for two days, it's got a two-day head start. So, if I just look at it every day, I'm so much better off. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I'm a believer in the benefits of translation. It's a necessity and a privilege - it would be awful to be limited to reading authors who's work was composed in the languages I happen to have learned. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I think probably the thing I'm worst at is the most ephemeral stuff, like blogs. I find it really hard to write. And I'm often been asked to write columns for papers in Peru. And I can't. I would die. There's no way I could write a column. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I guess in my own life I don't really think much about manliness too much. I feel like a lot of men that I know don't sit around thinking, "How am I supposed to be a man?" I don't think that I have to prove anything. ~ Daniel Alarcon

When I was younger, I was able to write with music playing in the background, but these days, I can't. I find it distracting. Even when the music is just instrumental or has lyrics in a language I don't understand, the clash between the voices in my head and the song can be very disorienting. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws of physics that you don't understand, in a new universe. So having written one novel does nothing for you when you have to write the second one. ~ Daniel Alarcon

There are stories that are by and for Latin Americans, where a certain amount of cultural fluency is expected, where we can delight in the details, the humor, the particularities of speech, of dialects. Something is always lost in translation; we know instinctively that this is the case. A Radio Ambulante story looks at Latin America from the inside. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels. ~ Daniel Alarcon

He imagined her impressed by his maturity, by his willingness to share her with another man. But this formulation was partial. It did not take into account the fact that she'd loved him, or that he'd broken her heart. It did not consider that her heart might be broken still, or that every time they slept together, it broke a little more. ~ Daniel Alarcon

This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

There was a problem: No one cared about human rights anymore, not at home or abroad. They cared about growth
hoped for and celebrated in all the newspapers, invoked by zealous bureaucrats in every self-serving television interview. On this matter, the filmmaker was agnostic
he came from money, and couldn't see the urgency. Like many of his ilk, he sometimes confused poverty (which must be eradicated!) with folklore (which must be preserved!), but it was a genuine confusion, without a hint of ill intention, which only made it more infuriating. ~ Daniel Alarcon

Radio, or at least the kind of radio we're proposing to do, can cut through that. It can reach people who would otherwise never hear your work, and of course I find that very notion inspiring. Radio stories are powerful because the human voice is powerful. It has been and will continue to be the most basic element of storytelling. As a novelist (and I should note that working my novel is the first thing I do in the morning and the very last thing I do before I sleep), shifting into this new medium is entirely logical. It's still narrative, only with different tools. ~ Daniel Alarcon

And what does he feel?"
"He feels uneasy. A little afaid. Angry. Oddly, a hint of pride."
"Good," Henry said. "ANd where are you?"
"Backstage."
Henry shook his head gravely. "THere's no such thing as backstage. The play begins, and there's only the world it dramatizes. Now, where are you?"
"With my father, the president. In his chambers."
"Right. With me. Your father. And now
this is important
do you love me?"
Nelson considered this; or rather, Nelson, as Alejo, considered this.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "I do."
"Good. Remember that. In every scene
even when you hate me, you also love me. That's why it hurts. Got it?"
Nelson said that he did.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because it does hurt," Henry said. "DOn't forget that. It's supposed to. Always. ~ Daniel Alarcon

The street heaves and winds,
burns and bumps,
but behind the glass
the locksmith,
the old curator of timepieces,
stands motionless
with a single protruding eye,
one amazing eye
which peers into the mystery,
the secret hearts of clocks,
and looks deeply in
until the elusive butterfly
of time in its measure
is trapped in his forehead
and the wings of the watch beat."

-from "To Don Asterio Alarcón, Clocksmith of Valparaíso ~ Pablo Neruda

Most of what's known about religious practices in pre-Hispanic Mexico has come to us through a Catholic parish priest named Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, one of the few who ever became fluent in the Nahuatl language. He spent the 1620s writing his "Treatise on the Superstitions and Heathen Customs that Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain". He'd originally meant it to be something of a "field guide to the heathens" to help priests recognize and exterminate indigenous religious rites and their practitioners. In the process of his documentation, though, it's clear from his writings that Father Ruiz de Alarcón grew sympathetic. He was particularly fascinated with how Nahuatl people celebrated the sacred in ordinary objects, and encouraged living and spirit realities to meet up in the here and now. He noted that the concept of "death" as an ending did not exactly exist for them. When Aztec people left their bodies, they were presumed to be on an exciting trip through the ether. It wasn't something to cry about, except that the living still wanted to visit with them. People's sadness was not for the departed, but for themselves, and could be addressed through ritual visiting called Xantolo, an ordinary communion between the dead and the living. Mexican tradition still holds that Xantolo is always present in certain places and activities, including marigold fields, the cultivation of corn, the preparation of tamales and pan de muerto. Interestingly, farmers' markets ar ~ Barbara Kingsolver

When they had ended their prayers, the Angel of Death recovered his loquacity and his gayety and ascending the chariot again, preceded by Gil Gil, spoke as follows.

'The village you see on that mountain is Gethsemane. In it was the Garden of Olives. On the other side you can distinguish an eminence crowned by a temple which stands out against a starry sky - that is Golgotha. There I passed the greatest day of my existence. I thought I had vanquished God himself - and vanquished he was for some hours. But, alas! on that mount, too, it was that three days later I saw myself disarmed and my power brought to naught on the morning of a certain Sunday. Jesus had risen from the dead. There, too, took place on the same occasion my great single combat with Nature. There took place my duel with her, that terrible duel (at the third hour of the day, I remember it well), when, as soon as she saw me thrust the lance of Longinus in the breast of the Saviour she began to throw stones at me, to upturn the cemeteries, to bring the dead to life, and I know not what besides. I thought poor Nature had lost her senses.'

The Angel of Death seemed to reflect for a moment... ("The Friend of Death") ~ Pedro Antonio De Alarcón

Very well, but - who are you?' again asked Gil Gil, in whom curiosity was beginning to get the better of every other feeling.

'I told you that when I first spoke to you - I am your friend. And bear in mind that you are the only being on the face of the earth to whom I accord the title of friend. I am bound to you by remorse! I am the cause of all your misfortunes.'

'I do not know you,' replied the shoemaker.

'And yet I have entered your house many times! Through me you were left motherless at your birth; I was the cause of the apoplectic stroke that killed Juan Gil; it was I who turned you out of the palace of Rionuevo; I assassinated your old house-mate, and, finally, it was I who placed in your pocket the vial of sulfuric acid.'

Gil Gil trembled like a leaf; he felt his hair stand on end, and it seemed to him as if his contracted muscles must burst asunder.

'You are the devil!' he exclaimed, with indescribable terror.

'Child!' responded the black-robed figure in accents of amiable censure, 'what has put that idea into your head? I am something greater and better than the wretched being you have named.'

'Who are you, then?'

'Let us go into the inn and you shall learn.'

Gil hastily entered, drew the Unknown before the modest lantern that lighted the apartment, and looked at him with intense curiosity.

He was a person about thirty-three years old; tall, handsome, pale ~ Pedro Antonio De Alarcón

The moon fled eastward like a frightened dove, while the stars changed their places in the heavens, like a disbanding army.

'Where are we?' asked Gil Gil.

'In France,' responded the Angel of Death. 'We have now traversed a large portion of the two bellicose nations which waged so sanguinary a war with each other at the beginning of the present century. We have seen the theater of the War of Succession. Conquered and conquerors both lie sleeping at this instant. My apprentice, Sleep, rules over the heroes who did not perish then, in battle, or afterward of sickness or of
old age. I do not understand why it is that below on earth all men are not friends? The identity of your misfortunes and your weaknesses, the need you have of each other, the shortness of your life, the spectacle of the grandeur of other worlds, and the comparison between them and your littleness, all this should combine to unite you in brotherhood, like the passengers of a vessel threatened with shipwreck. There, there is neither love, nor hate, nor ambition, no one is debtor or creditor, no one is great or little, no one is handsome or ugly, no one is happy or unfortunate. The same danger surrounds all and my presence makes all equal. Well, then, what is the earth, seen from this height, but a ship which is foundering, a city delivered up to an epidemic or a conflagration?'

'What are those ignes fatui which I can see shining in certain places on the terrestrial globe ~ Pedro Antonio De Alarcón