The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes On A Latin American Journey Quotes
"The enormity of our endeavor escaped us in those moments; all we could see was the dust on the road ahead and ourselves on the bike, devouring kilometers in our flight northward."
"It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over."
"Although the blurred silhouette of the couple was nearly lost in the distance separating us, we could still see the man’s singularly determined face."
"I don’t know where I found the strength to free myself from her eyes, to slip from her arms."
"The biggest effort Chile should make is to shake its uncomfortable Yankee friend from its back, a task that for the moment at least is Herculean."
"We seemed to breathe more freely, a lighter air, an air of adventure. Distant countries, heroic deeds and beautiful women spun around and around in our turbulent imaginations."
"We will see whether some day, some miner will take up his pick in pleasure and go and poison his lungs with a conscious joy."
"This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be."
"The intention of this diary is not really to recount those days in Miramar where Comeback found a new home, with one resident in particular to whom Comeback’s name was directed."
"The first commandment for every good explorer is that an expedition has two points: the point of departure and the point of arrival."
"Man, the measure of all things, speaks here through my mouth and narrates in my own language that which my eyes have seen."
"But the foundations they rest on are unmoved, the great blocks of the Temple of the Sun indifferently exhibit their gray stone; however colossal the disaster befalling its oppressor, not one of its huge rocks shifts from its place."
"The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it."
"Every morning the mountain is dynamited and huge mechanical shovels load the material on to rail wagons that take it to the grinder to be crushed."
"The violent red of the flowers, the intense bronze of the Lord of the Earthquakes and the silver altar they carry him on lend the procession the impression that it’s a pagan festival."
"The most important and irrefutable thing, however, is that here we found the pure expression of the most powerful indigenous race in the Americas—untouched by a conquering civilization and full of immensely evocative treasures between its walls."
"In reality it hardly matters what the primitive origins of the city are. It’s best, in any case, to leave discussion of the subject to archaeologists."
"The rise of modern transport has meant the faithful now spit out chewed coca leaves instead of placing stones, and this carries their troubles to rest with Pachamama."
"Knowledge of the terrain actually crossed by the conquistadors automatically elevates Valdivia’s feat to one of the most notable of Spanish colonization."
"Their stares are tame, almost fearful, and completely indifferent to the outside world."
"It’s a Chilean custom (afterwards I saw it across practically all of South America) not to throw used toilet paper in the toilet but on to the floor or in the boxes provided."
"We constitute a single mestizo race, which from Mexico to the Magellan Straits bears notable ethnographical similarities."
"The spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions."
"The stars drew light across the night sky in that little mountain village, and the silence and the cold made the darkness vanish away."
"To be a revolutionary doctor, or to be a revolutionary, there must first be a revolution."
"A revolution needs what we have in Cuba: an entire people mobilized, who have learned the use of arms and the practice of combative unity."
"The isolated effort, the individual effort, the purity of ideals, the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals means naught if that effort is made alone."
"The terrible thing is the people need to be educated, and this they cannot do before taking power, only after."
"I, like so many others, took the road to exile, or at least I took the road of fleeing from Guatemala, since that was not my homeland."
"A new type of human being should be created."
"In Cuba a new type of human being is being created."
"The revolution’s task is the greatest work of social medicine that has been done in Cuba."
"One day medicine will have to become a science that serves to prevent diseases."
"The revolution is not a standardizer of collective will, it is a liberator of human beings’ individual capacity."
"Our task today is to orient the creative talent of all the medical professionals toward the tasks of social medicine."
"The forms of capitalism we have known are being defeated throughout the world."
"Individualism as such, as the isolated action of a person alone in a social environment, must disappear in Cuba."
"Changing the manner of thinking requires profound internal changes and helping bring about profound external changes, primarily social."
"Those external changes are taking place in Cuba every day."