It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow.
I had made myself believe that the eyes are not the mirror of the soul. Some of the deadliest little female contraptions I ever saw had the faces and the eyes of angels.
It’s funny how you want to do a thing and never do it.
If something was untrue and you didn’t know it, that was error. But if you knew a true thing and changed it to a false thing, both you and it were loathsome.
Maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they’re becoming atom-sized in their souls. Maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. And think what any specialist misses – the whole world over his fence.
Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an’ not do no murder. You done right. Don’t you kill nobody if you can help it.
It is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.
No one could call him a liar. And this was mainly because the lie was in his head, and any truth coming from his mouth carried the color of the lie.
And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls’ laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret.
His mind grinned inward at itself.
And this Kino knew also – that the gods do not love men’s plans, and the gods do not love success unless it comes by accident.
The sheriffs swore in new deputies and ordered new rifles; and the comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby.
Don’ keep ya guard up when nobody ain’t sparrin’ with ya.
And what could be more frightening than a child with total power? A spear and sword are terrible, God knows. That is why the knight who carries them is first taught pity, justice, mercy, and only last – force.
It was his first experience with this kind of love and it nearly killed him.
Act out being alive, like a play. And after awhile, a long while, it will be true... You’re going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.
He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.
For if ever any man were deeply and unconsciously sure that his future would be no better than his past, he might deeply wish to cease to live.
The weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb.