The Feast Of The Goat Quotes
"You’ll never know. Urania! As absurd as insulting old Santo Domingo de Guzmán by calling it Ciudad Trujillo."
"You wouldn’t have come back if the rancor were still sizzling, the wound still bleeding, the deception still crushing her, poisoning her, the way it did in your youth, when studying and working became an obsessive defense against remembering."
"Her memory brings back the image—was that the day?—of the little girl holding her father’s hand as they entered the hotel restaurant so the two of them could have lunch together."
"This daughter of mine is always working, she even repeats her lessons when she’s asleep."
"I’d like so much for you to know her, she has won the Prize for Excellence every year since she enrolled at Santo Domingo."
"An explosion of savage life, immune to the tide of modernization."
"It’s grown so much! When you left, in 1961, it sheltered three hundred thousand souls. More than a million now."
"What do five, ten, twenty thousand Haitians matter when it’s a question of saving an entire people?"
"I don’t recognize you either," Urania whispers. "I don’t know why I came or what I’m doing here."
"The house used to be full of books." Urania glances at the bare walls. "What happened to them? Of course, you can’t read anymore."
"It isn’t so terrible being an old maid. For one thing, I have time to read instead of taking care of a husband and children."
"He seems to understand, to be so interested he doesn’t dare move a muscle in case he interrupts her."
"My apartment in Manhattan is full of books," Urania continues. "Like this house when I was a girl."
"I’ve become an expert on Trujillo. Instead of playing bridge or golf, or riding horses, or going to the opera, my hobby has been finding out what happened during those years."
"You’re impulsive and you know how to fight, don’t you? Good. Come and work with me."
"There’s something I always forget to ask you," he said with the vulgarity he used when speaking to his collaborators. "How did you ever marry such an ugly woman?"
"That’s why I’m still in the saddle," Trujillo agreed. "Otherwise I would have retired, as I was advised to do by my Yankee friends."
"We’re united by something stronger. Dangers shared shoulder to shoulder, staring death in the face. And lots of blood, on both of us."
"For the sake of this country, I have stained these with blood." - Trujillo
"Imagine a hydra with countless heads, Excellency." - Young Deputy Chirinos
"Trujillo is not one of those leaders who abandon power when the bullets fly." - Trujillo
"The handful of white survivors would be serving the blacks. That was my most difficult decision in thirty years of government, Simon." - Trujillo
"I knew what was going on, but I wanted proof, so there would be no doubts. I didn’t make a decision even after I received an on-site report from the Constitutional Sot and Egghead. I decided to go there myself." - Trujillo
"Because I gave the order to kill only when it was absolutely necessary for the good of the country." - Trujillo
"They began to hunt down Haitians. Campesinos, merchants, and officials revealed their hiding places, and they hung them and beat them to death." - General Arredondo
"I was trained in the Marine Corps of the United States of America. I’ve never forgotten it." - Trujillo
"The Army obeyed orders. We began to separate the illegals from the others. But the people wouldn’t let us." - General Arredondo
"I recall that night on the Malecón, not very far from where he was now, six months later, waiting for the Goat—to avenge the Mirabal sisters too." - Narrator
"You could not call the puppet president an elegant man, but he dressed as correctly as he spoke, respected protocol, and was a tireless worker."
"There is a traitor or an incompetent on the secretarial staff. I hope it's a traitor, incompetents do more damage."
"Though he had been born in San Cristóbal, far from the sea, the sight of foaming waves and the surface of the water disappearing into the horizon was his favorite view."
"The truth is, I thought it a trivial matter. You had indicated, at the Council of Ministers, that Egghead’s situation did not extend to his family."
"The nuns gave her a scholarship because they know Cabral’s in disgrace. Because they think that now he’ll work for the enemy."
"The decisions of the Divinity are ineluctable."
"I am full of them, Excellency. But instead of paying me a compliment, you seem to be reproaching me."
"You don’t have a man’s natural appetites. As far as I know, you don’t like women and you don’t like boys."
"Ever since I first met Your Excellency, on that April morning in 1930, my only vice has been serving you."
"He sighed, somewhat fatigued, and thought of Dr. Enrique Lithgow Ceara: had the man really intended to kill him, or had he simply made a mistake?"
"Be quiet, Pedro Livio. Do you realize what that means? The head of the Armed Forces and the President of the Republic."
"I’ve often thought about that theory of yours, Dr. Balaguer. Was it a divine decision? Why me? Why was I chosen?"
"If there was anyone for whom he would have put his hands to the fire, it was the author of the most widely read Dominican novel at home and abroad."
"The Dominican Republic had survived more than four centuries—four hundred thirty-eight years—of countless adversities."
"The small, plump hands, nails trimmed short, opened and closed in contrition."
"He wore an impeccably tailored dark suit, a white shirt with a starched collar, and a white-flecked blue tie held in place by a pearl."
"The Chief doesn’t accept discouragement or weakness, Agustín. He wants us all to be like him. Tireless, a rock, a man of iron."
"I remember his scent," says Urania, "since then, every time a man wearing scent happens to be near me, I see Manuel Alfonso again."
"Why don’t we have some whiskey, Egghead," the ambassador exclaims, "Is it worth living if you have to deprive yourself of the good things?"
"I’ve never been a drunkard, never lost control of my actions," he says. "But I’ve always known how to enjoy life."
"Nobody would think you ever had money problems, Manuel."
"I owe him everything. What I have, what I became."
"I want him to go on with his living death, I want him to suffer." She speaks very calmly, her eyes lowered. "That’s why I help him, Aunt Adelina."
"See you soon, Amadito." Tony embraces him. "Your friendship is one of the good things that’s happened to me."
"I didn’t realize until now that it hurt," replied the lieutenant.
"He’s very tactful. Even if he feels unhappy about that, he wouldn’t have told me so."
"We have to talk, Uranita. Come, let’s go up to your room. I don’t want the servants to hear us."
"Don’t think I’m sorry about that," said Imbert. "The truth is, I never had much faith in the coup, the civilian-military junta, all those dreams of Antonio de la Maza."
"I’ve always been this way: the Chief comes first, then me."
"Don’t cry, precious. We’ll get out of this, you’ll see, we won’t let them defeat us."
"I think I can help you, son," Dr. Durán Barreras intervened. "The mechanic who fixes my station wagon has a little farm he wants to rent."
"Let’s forget it. I hope you haven’t taken this the wrong way, Egghead. Forget it! Let’s forget it!"
"You’re what I love most in the world." He smiled at her. "The best thing I have. Since your mama died, you’re all I have left in this life."
"I wouldn’t want to be in your skin if they catch you."
"There’s no better strychnine than this, brother."
"Poison is for dogs and women, don’t fuck around with bullshit like that."
"Besides, asshole, you commit suicide with cyanide, not strychnine."
"Maybe his wife, to ask how her pussy’s doing."
"What the hell are we doing here? We don’t even know where we’re going."
"Everything you are and everything you have you owe to Papa."
"Now you’re only paying for your betrayal of Papa."
"You can tell that filthy son of a bitch for me that I hope he swallows his tongue and poisons himself."
"Don’t you know I have a family? Do you want them to kill us?"
"Get away! For the sake of everything you hold dear, get out of here!"
"Kill me, General Trujillo, but let my wife and children go."
"Before you go to hell, you have to pass through purgatory."
"We don’t have to wait for Ramfis. I’ll straighten him out right now."
"I’ve just been informed of a possible attempt on His Excellency’s life, on the San Cristóbal highway."
"Mr. President, I am holding you responsible for the life of Monsignor Reilly."
"In the name of the Generalissimo, your uncle, I urge you to avoid a historical calamity."
"If anything happens to Monsignor Reilly, who is an American citizen, it can be catastrophic for the country."
"I am not certain of being obeyed, gentlemen. But, as you can see, I am doing everything in my power to restore rationality."
"You can count on me to do what is needed, Mr. President."
"The best defense the assassins have is to compromise everyone. Especially those who were close to the Benefactor."
"It’s true, I don’t believe there is another policy. To save ourselves from the Marines and the Communists, and to have the OAS and Washington lift the sanctions."
"I have always believed that the regime ought to open up to modern times."
"Forgive them, Mr. President, for they know not what they do."
"The country is waiting for a gesture from you."