“When a group of people are forced to navigate a minefield together, everyone feels a grudging sense of comfort when someone else gets blown up. Though there may be other unseen landmines left in the ground, each death creates a safe spot. A landmine cannot explode twice in the same place. Sure, the explosion robs the survivors of a comrade. Still, each death makes everyone’s next step marginally safer. So everyone keeps walking with grief on their faces, and relief in their hearts. Their own deaths are further postponed by the end of another life.”

“Nothing prepares you for hiring a person whose only contribution to the workforce will be killing people!”

“An Abel Muranda without his wife and children would be a wandering bachelor without any dignity. He would sleep in caves and feed on wild berries. But no matter how lonely life became, he would never come to a place like this”

“In Panama, I found a spider that eats its own limbs during lean times. I am told they grow back. But though the distinction is razor-thin, desperation is not the same thing as determination. Nevertheless, auto-cannibalism is one the most intriguing phenomenon I have ever heard of.”

“Never is a man more proud than when he shuffles paper in front of an illiterate person.”

“I tell you, Professor, growing up is a full contact sport. Somewhere in our brains, foolishness and naïveté join forces with a false sense of invincibility. Together, they score own-goals against their host’s interests. All this happens while that referee known as ‘reason’ is collapsed in a drunken stupor, unable to stop the madness. When he finally wakes up, all he can do is grant the useless penalty known as ‘hindsight’. But the outcome remains unchanged. The game is lost …”

“The funnel of my family’s salvation must continue narrowing towards the gallows. That journey cannot begin at the parted tips of another woman’s toes”

“... cynicism is the only tool that can scrape away the tint off rose-coloured glasses.”

“The plant and animal kingdoms (excluding humans) offered some pleasant surprises. Organisms from these realms are much simpler to figure out. Their behaviours are not muddied by personality factors or flawed belief systems. If an insect smells like a fart, you can be sure that the stench has a genetic basis. It is neither trying to make a lofty point, nor is it suffering from an inferiority complex.”

“Mr. Gweta and his daughter were the cosmetics camouflaging an infected blackhead. The rest of the ugliness ran deep into a world where plants ate people and botanists lay at the bottom of the food chain.”

“The primitive craving for survival is universal in all things capable of dying. Now imagine if you could isolate the basic element that drives all animals to fight for survival? What would you do with it? I already had my own ideas when I started my search for an entity I eventually dubbed “The Determination Gene”.”