Roberto Bolaño, 2666 Quotes

Every hundred feet the world changes

The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.

So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.

Nothing is ever behind us.

Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.

Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.

For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths…

You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman's fears.

His words saddened them greatly, though they couldn't say why.

When you know something, you know it, and when you don't, you'd better learn. And in the meantime, you should keep quiet, or at least speak only when what you say will advance the learning process.

All names disappear. Children should be taught that in elementary school. But we're afraid to teach them.

Does this mean that in some places I'm American and in some places I'm African American and in other places, by logical extension, I'm nobody?

No one knew what she was doing in Colonia Hidalgo, although it was most likely, according to the police, that she'd been taking a walk and had come upon death purely by chance.