Top Highlights

• People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren’t already complicated enough.’
• ‘Presents are made for the pleasure of the one who gives them, not for the merits of those who receive them,’
• ‘Not evil,’ Fermín objected. ‘Moronic, which isn’t quite the same thing. Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn’t stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like an animal, convinced that he’s doing good, that he’s always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around fucking up, if y...
• The words with which a child’s heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.’
• ‘Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you,’