"Night calls to the water lily, and at the stroke of midnight those white points of light burst open in the river, opening the darkness, penetrating it, breaking it apart and swallowing it up."

"My certainties breakfast on doubts. And there are days when I feel like a stranger in Montevideo and anywhere else."

"The sun lit up the snow and set a big white fire ablaze at the edge of the ocean that brought tears to my eyes . . . The ocean looked very happy, licking this enormous plate of ice cream, and my last images of Calella de la Costa were the sea's joy and that radiant field of white."

"For we are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass, which is something everyone knows, no matter how small his or her knowledge."