Mixtli: ...And I concluded with the words I had heard in various languages everywhere:
"The Azteca were here, but they brought nothing with them, and they left nothing where they went."
"The Azteca were here, but they brought nothing with them, and they left nothing where they went."
"Of all that I have possessed in my life, my memories are the only things remaining to me. Indeed, I believe that memories are the only real treasure any human can hope to hold always."
— Mixtli.
"Tenochtítlan, Cem-Anáhuac Tlali Yolóco," murmured my father. "It is truly the Heart and Center of the One World" I had been so transfixed with enchantment that I had not noticed him join me at the forward edge of our freighter. "Look long, Son Mixtli. You may experience this wonder and many other wonders more than once. But, of first times, there is always and forever only one."
— The wise words of Tepetzálan, Mixtli's father.
"Yes, at your age, many possible lives await. Go whichever way you choose. Go alone or in company. The companions may walk with you a long way or a little. But at the end of your life, no matter how crowded were its roads and its days, you will have learned what all must learn. And that will be too late for any starting over, too late for anything but regret. So learn it now. No man has ever yet lived out any life but one, and that one his chosen own, and most of that alone."
—The cacao-bean man
"I think I have loved you ever since… but we will not speak of yesterdays. I say only that I love you today and I will love you tomorrow. Because the yesterdays are gone. Todays and tomorrows are all the days that ever can be. And on every one of them I will say I love you."
—Zyanya
"But I knew that moment to be a historic moment, and I stood transfixed in a sort of awe, to hear and remember, as I do to this day, the emphatic words of a strange new being who might very well be a god: “I swear by Santiago, I am sick of fucking bald cunts."
—Mixtli describing the historic moment to the Bishop.
