May 29th, 2005, 12:40 p.m.
Quotes from Shadow of the Wind by Cazon, the best-written and most engaging book I have read in a long, long, long time:
"Her father, a prominent lawyer linked to the Catalan president's cabinet, had had the foresight to send his wife and daughter to the other side of the border at the start of the Civil War. Some considered his fear exaggerated, and maintained that nothing could possibly happen in Barcelona. In Spain, both the cradle and pinnacle of Christian civilization, barbarism was for anarchists - those people who rode bicycles and wore darned socks - and surely they wouldn't get very far. But Clara's father believed that nations never see themselves clearly in the mirror, much less when war preys on their minds. He had a good understanding of history and knew that the future could be read much more clearly in the streets, factories, and barracks than in the morning press."
"The trouble is that man ... heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand - and this is pure science - heats up like an iron, if you see what I mean. Slowly, over low heat, like a tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her."
"There are yokels out there who think that if they touch a woman's behind and she doesn't complain, they've hooked her. Amateurs. The female heart is a labyrinth of subtleties, too challenging for the uncouth mind of a male racketeer. If you really want to possess a woman, you must think like her, and the first thing to do is to win over her soul. The rest, that sweet, soft wrapping that steals away your senses and your virtue, is a bonus."
"The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul."
"'Calm down or you'll grow a stone in your liver,' Fermín advised me. 'This business of courtship is like a tango: absurd and pure embellishment. But you're the man, and you must take the lead.'
It was all beginning to look pretty grim. 'The lead? Me?'
'What do you expect? One has to pay some price for being able to piss standing up.'"
"When one is young, talent - genius, if you like - must be cultivated, or it becomes twisted and consumes the person who possesses it. It needs direction. Support." Language spot: Anyone who can explain this English expression to me gets a plastic token prize: "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." From "Blunders": A museum in County Durham, England, stopped displaying a Roman sesterce coin from the 2nd century AD after a 9-yr old visitor correctly identified it as a plastic token given away in a promotion by a soft-drink company.
