The Crossing Quotes
"You could ride clear to Mexico and not strike a crossfence."
"He would whisper half aloud to him as he slept his plans for them and the life they would have."
"He knew that they would be coming out onto the plain in the new snow to run the antelope in the moonlight."
"The antelope moved like phantoms in the snow."
"It was very still. He could see by his breath how the wind lay."
"Riding out for wood he watched his shadow and the shadow of the horse."
"He had not known that you could see yourself in others' eyes."
"The light of the unrisen moon lying in a sulphur haze over the valley."
"He watched while the light ran out along the edges of the desert prairie."
"The dog whined and scratched at the smokehouse door."
"The horses whimpered softly to him in the cold."
"A god insatiable whom no ceding could appease nor any measure of blood."
"She ate even their bones where they lay blind and dying in the snow."
"By the time they crossed through the dry bed of the river and ridden up onto the plain the sun was already behind the peaks."
"As if it were a maze where these orphans of his heart had miswandered."
"The Indian squatting under a thin stand of carrizo cane and not even hidden."
"They crossed the open ground toward the fence and the lights from the house."
"He watched the night sky through the front room window."
"Dreams of that malignant lesser god come pale and naked and alien to slaughter all his clan and kin."
"The trees inhabiting the dry river bed were bare from early on."
"The ignorance of the animals was a puzzle to them."
"As if the cows evoked in them some anger. As if they were offended by some violation of an old order."
"No one could see the wolf without the permission of the hacendado."
"He said that the wolf had been put in his care."
"The boy said he did not want the man's money then or now."
"They said a wolf was a wolf. They did not believe that she'd eaten anyone."
"He said that if there was a fine that he would work to pay the fine."
"Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see."
"For while it seemed a place which contained men it was in reality a place contained within them."
"Every breath taken that does not bless is an affront."
"To see God everywhere is to see Him nowhere."
"The truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it."
"In the end we shall all of us be only what we have made of God."
"There is another who will hear what you never spoke."
"All men are one and there is no other tale to tell."
"For the path of the world also is one and not many and there is no alter course in any least part of it."
"Ultimately every man’s path is every other’s."
"The sharing of bread is not such a simple thing nor is its acknowledgement."
"If their hearts went out to him it was yet true that for very small cause they might also have killed him."
"You do not know what things you set in motion."
"The consequences of an act are often quite different from what one would guess."
"If they were old enough to bleed they were old enough to butcher."
"The days were hot and dry and the riders and their horses by each day’s end were the color of the road."
"The sun was down and the long cool evening of the high country had set in."
"The upper branches of the cottonwoods were already in sunlight."
"He told it stories in Spanish that his grandmother had told him as a child."
"The last thin paring of the old moon hung over the distant mountains to the west."
"In the blue dusk of that day he saw a light far to the north that first he took for the polestar."
"The thin horned moon lay on its back in the west like a grail and the bright shape of Venus hung directly above it like a star falling into a boat."
"He’d about forgotten that people even drank milk."
"The eggs steamed in the bowl. In the unshaded light of the coaloil lamp their faces hung like masks."
"The blind man sat stiff and erect. As if he himself were the guest in his own house."
"Only the most pathetic of fools would die for a cause that was both wrong and doomed."
"The world was new each day for God so made it daily."
"No one had ever seen such a thing. They spoke in awe."
"He was surprised at the authority which his blindness conferred upon him."
"She asked him had he always been blind and he weighed this question and after a while he said that yes he had."
"He said that the world was sentient to its core and secret and black beyond men’s imagining."
"He said that like every man who comes to the end of something there was nothing to be done but to begin again."
"The world which he imagines to be the ciborium of all godlike things will come to naught but dust before him."
"He said that as the memory of the world must fade so must it fade in his dreams until soon or late he feared that he would have darkness absolute."
"He said that to close one’s eyes told nothing. Any more than sleeping told of death."
"The key to heaven has power to open the gates of hell."
"He said that the blind have much to contemplate."
"She said that even the wicked could not escape his love."
"He said that in every trade save war men of talent and vigor prosper. In war they die."
"He said that most men were in their lives like the carpenter whose work went so slowly for the dullness of his tools that he had not time to sharpen them."
"He said that true evil has power to sober the smalldoer against his own deeds."
"He spoke of the broad dryland barrial and the river and the road and the mountains beyond and the blue sky over them as entertainments to keep the world at bay."
"He said that the light of the world was in men’s eyes only for the world itself moved in eternal darkness."
"The last thin fluted cry like a child’s horn floated away on the night’s onset."
"The cranes were moving south and he watched their thin echelons trail along those unseen corridors writ in their blood a hundred thousand years."
"The antique world clung to the stones and to the spores of living things and dwelt in the blood of men."
"For the enmity of the world was newly plain to him that day and cold and inameliorate as it must be to all who have no longer cause except themselves to stand against it."
"He looked for them for weeks but he found only shadow and rumor."
"The sweatblackened saddle stood against the wall along with the shotgun in its scabbard."
"The deep cyanic sky taut and vaulted over the whole of Mexico."
"In the darkness, he passed a file of five horsemen riding south back the way he’d come."
"The sound of ducks somewhere on the water and sometimes the high thin cranking of the flights of cranes still passing south a mile above the river."
"The heart betrayed itself and the wicked often had eyes to see that which was hidden from the good."
"The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God."
"If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them?"
"The soul of Mexico is very old, said Quijada. Whoever claims to know it is either a liar or a fool."
"What makes one a good enemy also makes one a good friend."
"We seek some witness but the world will not provide one."
"Every representation was an idol. Every likeness a heresy."
"The past, he said, is always this argument between counterclaimants."
"La historic del hijo termina en las montañas, he said. Y por allá queda la realidad de él."
"He said that journeys involving the company of the dead were notorious for their difficulty but that in truth every journey was so accompanied."