Elian Quotes

This isn't a bargain, it's a deal."
"I'm not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages."
I twist my lips into a cruel smile. "Then by all means, let me out."
Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.
"You know," he says, approaching the cell, "I think I might like you. Thing is" – he taps his gun against my prison – "there's a difference between liking someone and trusting them."
"I wouldn't know. I've never done either. ~ Alexandra Christo

In the pits of our souls - if I amuse myself with the notion that I have a soul - Elian and I aren't so different. Two kingdoms that come with responsibilities we each have trouble bearing. Him, the shackles of being pinned to one land and one life. Me, trapped in the confines of my mother's murderous legacy. And the ocean, calling out to us both. A song of freedom and longing. ~ Alexandra Christo

It is a striking example of modern conservatism's emphasis on the moral worth of the individual ... When I look at the debate over Elian ... I have to say that rarely have I been prouder of my fellow conservatives. ~ Ramesh Ponnuru

How strange that instead of taking his heart, I'm hoping he takes mine. ~ Alexandra Christo

In consigning Elian back to slavery without a hearing, this administration is setting back the cause of freedom
in this country and in Cuba. ~ David Limbaugh

Some suggested over the weekend that it is wrong to expect Elian Gonzalez to live in a place that tolerates no dissent or freedom of political expression. They were talking about Miami. ~ Katie Couric

It's the least that someone can do, someone like me that owes so much to this people and to the revolution: study hard, but more than that, defend them under any circumstance. ~ Elian Gonzalez

When we reach the wall, we can discuss your future," Elian says.
I clench my fists, appalled at his audacity and the fact that I'm being forced to tolerate it. Never the queen, always the minion.
"Discuss it?" I repeat.
"You said you wanted to come with us, and I want to make sure you're useful. You can't just be a prisoner taking up space on my deck."
"I was belowdecks," I remind him. "In a cage."
"That was this morning," he says, as though it's far enough in the past to be forgotten. "Try not to hold a grudge."
The grin he gives me is beyond taunting and I sneer, not deigning to reply. Instead I breeze past and make sure to knock my shoulder as hard as I can into his. The sooner I have his heart, the better. ~ Alexandra Christo

Fidel Castro for me is like a father. ~ Elian Gonzalez

Lies aren't answers."
"But they sound so much better than the truth. ~ Alexandra Christo

She ascends from the ocean in a way that is nothing short of celestial. The water follows her in a throne, elevating her to the height of my ship. Ocean-soaked hair runs down the length of her body, and she retains the otherworldly glow that always seems to illuminate her moony skin. Only now she is something more than just a siren, or a girl masquerading as a pirate.
She is a goddess. ~ Alexandra Christo

I'd like to go to Cuba. ~ Elian Gonzalez

If you get shot," Lira says, "I'm going to treat you like you're incapable of doing the simplest tasks."
She cradles her arms around her knees to keep out the cold.
"See how you like it when I hold out my arm to help you walk, even though you're not shot in the leg."
"I'd be flattered," I say, "that you would look for an excuse just to hold my hand."
"Perhaps I'm just looking for an excuse to shoot you. ~ Alexandra Christo

Wherever I go, there's always a child, an old woman, that comes to me and wants to meet me. Not because I am famous but because they suffered with my family. ~ Elian Gonzalez

It was the moths that first revealed the change. Grey-tipped whispers in the moonlit night. Two or three here, a single one there. White ones slipping through the darkness, silent and seemingly harmless, but present. Growing in numbers until they erupted the quiet like flutters of falling ash. There was a music in their silence. The kind of music that attached itself to hums and vibrations in the waters of the earth.

The hums, the vibrations, all but imperceptible. With the dawn the moths vanished, leaving a broken land in their wake. The Elian River leaked out into fissures of streams and brooks that first appeared as watery cracks throughout the Faeran Valley. So small at first, we didn't recognize the difference.

But as the months and years passed, the Elian slipped further and deeper into the growing fractures of earth the moths had left. Trails of watery branches and veins that broke the ground until it couldn't sustain life any longer.

This is what we have against the Bremistans. The land is delicate now, brittle like old bones. And I fear it is aging beyond our ability to heal it.... ~ Debi Cimo

I don't like you because you're nice," Elian says.
"That says a lot about your psyche. ~ Alexandra Christo

Everything is a game to him. Loyalty is mockery and devotion is kinship in place of fear. He is a riddle, disguised as a ruler, able to laugh at the idea of disloyalty as though it would never be an option. I can't fathom such a thing. ~ Alexandra Christo