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Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction

Book by Luis Alberto Urrea · 13 quotes · Death, Grief, Loss

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Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction Quotes

“Cuquis can read. She pores over a Bible the missionaries have given her. "Listen to this," she says. "'Let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass. And its flower falls off. And the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So too the rich man in his pursuits will fade away.'" Several of the women mutter, "Amen." "Good old Jesus Christ," Cuca says. "He'll kick the shit out of those rich bastards.”

“El Yauco is the mountain that stands across the Baluarte from Rosario. The top of it looks like the profile of John F. Kennedy in repose. The only flaw in this geographic wonder is that the nose is upside-down. Once, when Jaime and I had painfully struggled to the summit to investigate the nose, we found this message: MOTHER NATURE HAS NO RESPECT FOR YANQUI PRESIDENTS EITHER!”

“And afterward, I stopped at Red Cloud's grave to pay my respects to the old chief. Some Oglalas had left him tobacco ties, little sacred bundles in all the colors of the four directions. I asked him to take care of my woman out there, where she was new and maybe lost. I asked him to take her into his lodge and protect her until I could come for her. That's all I remember.”

“I was not only invited to read: I was expected to read. Reading was my responsibility, in English and Spanish. Like many poor kids before me, I was given the best gift anyone could hope for--a library card. On Saturdays, my mother and I would take the #11 bus downtown. I'd haul my stack of the week's books inside and come back out with a new armload. I was a millionaire.”

“Florida was his destination. He didn't care about Miami, Disneyworld, the Keys. He was feeling primordial, reptilian in his rage. He was a wild car thief. He belonged in a swamp. He aimed himself at the Okefenokee like a pistol. Pogo territory. Spiders as big as your hand, cottonmouths, malaria. Crazy dark continent dreams, a vanishing act.”