Cono Quotes

“To Cono’s mind the three assailants were all three nearly motionless even as they skittered and dodged, firing, maneuvering for a kill. Cono felt exhilaration—the ecstatic awareness that his strange brain and body had ordained him for just such moments, by allowing him to enter a space outside of time.”

“Cono knew that all three of his tormentors would know the anthem by heart from their childhood years. They had sung it daily to belong to the elite of their country, wearing around their necks the red ties of the Communist Party Youth Brigade, which had formed their beings and all that they would be and would ever believe, even as communism became a ghost and the party a web of corruption.”

“I believe in the goddess of mystery. And she’s always pregnant!”

“What took you so long? Waiting for Buddha?”

“In my country, when we think about the future, we shake.”

“Hungry for what? Money? No. Power? Over people? That was like having power over clams.”

“If it’s not one god it’s another. Allah or oil. Jesus or Jewels. Lenin or lust.”