Agustina Bazterrica Quotes

The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus.

Because hatred gives one strength to go on; it maintains the fragile structure, it weaves the threads together so that emptiness doesn’t take over everything.

She had the human look of a domesticated animal.

He tried to hate all of humanity for being so fragile and ephemeral but he couldn't keep it up because hating everyone is the same as hating no one.

I don't get why a person's smile is considered attractive. When someone smiles, they're showing their skeleton.

Naming children after their parents is stripping them of an identity, reminding them who they belong to.

After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. The Transition has enabled us to be less hypocritical.

Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,” his father said, “but he flew, do you see what I mean, Son? He was able to fly. It doesn’t matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds.

He tried to hate God but he doesn’t believe in God. He tried to hate all of humanity for being so fragile and ephemeral but he couldn’t keep it up because hating everyone is the same as hating no one.

there are words that cover up the world.

which god should she pray to if her god lets things like this happen.

His father is a person of integrity, that’s why he went crazy.

No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food. Except for him; he would prefer not to have to call them by any name.

We are the worst kind of vermin, destroying our planet, starving our fellow man.

know that when I die somebody’s going to sell my flesh on the black market, one of my awful distant relatives. That’s why I smoke and drink, so I taste bitter and no one gets any pleasure out of my death.” She takes a quick drag and says, “Today I’m the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle.

No one can be sure of anything. Let them eat me, I’ll give them horrible indigestion.

Don’t be an idiot. Can’t you see they’re controlling us? If we eat each other, they control overpopulation, poverty, crime. Do you want me to keep going? I mean, it’s obvious.

Does this pose a moral dilemma for you? Do you find it atrocious?” he asks. “Not at all. The human being is complex and I find the vile acts, contradictions, and sublimities characteristic of our condition astonishing. Our existence would be an exasperating shade of gray if we were all flawless.

There is something about her he'd like to break

Tenía la mirada humana del animal domesticado”.

His brain warns him that there are words that cover up the world. There are words that are convenient, hygienic. Legal.

He felt that a slaughterhouse should go unnoticed and blend in with the landscape, that it should never be called what it really is.

[...] she screams as if the world didn't exist, she screams as if words had split in two and lost all meaning, she screams as if beneath this hell there was another hell, one from which she didn't want to escape.

How many hearts need to be stored in boxes for the pain to be transformed into something else? But the pain, he intuits, is the only thing that keeps him breathing. Without the sadness, he has nothing left.

The human being is complex and I find the vile acts, contradictions, and sublimities characteristic of our condition astonishing. Our existence would be an exasperating shade of gray if we were all flawless.

Enseñar a matar es peor que matar.

Porque el odio da fuerzas para seguir, mantiene la estructura frágil, entreteje los hilos para que el vacío no lo ocupe todo.

Today I’m the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle

¿Cuántos corazones tienen que ser guardados en cajas para que el dolor se transforme en otra cosa? Pero el dolor, intuye, es lo único que lo hace seguir respirando. Sin la tristeza, no le queda nada.

Las palabras están ahí, encapsuladas. Se pudren, detrás de la locura.

I have always believed that in our capitalist, consumerist society, we devour each other.

How many head do they have to kill each month so he can pay for his father’s nursing home? How many humans do they have to slaughter for him to forget how he laid Leo down in his cot, tucked him in, sang him a lullaby, and the next day saw he had died in his sleep? How many hearts need to be stored in boxes for the pain to be transformed into something else? But the pain, he intuits, is the only thing that keeps him breathing. Without the sadness, he has nothing left.

After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other.

She had the human look of a domesticated animal.

Todos dicen que cayó porque voló demasiado cerca del sol, pero voló, ¿entendés, hijo? Pudo volar. No importa caer, si fuiste un pájaro al menos por unos segundos”.

I wonder if God is the hunger behind hunger, and if behind god lurks the hunger for another God

Su padre es una persona íntegra, por eso está demente

Carcass.

This is what his sister’s going to get: an urn full of dirty sand from an abandoned zoo with no name.

They gave human meat the name “special meat.” Instead of just “meat,” now there’s “special tenderloin,” “special cutlets,” “special kidneys.

She was horrified by the traces of monstrosity in everyday life. The things that we look at but don't see, whose true essences are unknown to us.

Can't you see you're incapable of thinking for yourself? The only thing you do is follow the norms imposed on you. Can't you see that this whole thing is a superficial act? Are you even capable of feeling something, really feeling it? I mean, have you ever cared about Dad?

There are times I think that none of this matters. Why put myself in danger with this book of the night? But I have to because if I write it, then it was real; if I write it, maybe we won’t just be part of a dream contained in a planet, inside a universe hidden in the imagination of someone who lives in the mouth of God. Each of these words contains my pulse. My blood. My breath.

His brain warns him that there are words that cover up the world. There are words that are convenient, hygienic, legal

Teaching to kill is worse than killing.

They’re just seniors, people who have been alive for many years, and perhaps that’s their only achievement.

The words are there, encapsulated. They’re rotting behind the madness.

There are times when one has to bear the weight of the world.

Burning a book made me angry because I knew I was setting fire to a world.

What is it like to hear the words emitted by the mouth of God? Are they small, ephemeral explosions? Does his tongue cradle death? God is hungry

What he was thinking was that he wished the coffin were less conspicuous; he knew it was white because of the purity of the child inside, but are we really that pure when we arrive in this world?

They nibble away at my brain, Drinking the juice of my heart And they tell me bedtime stories…

The planet is going to burst at any minute. You’ll see, Son, it’s either going to be blown to bits or all of us are going to die from some plague.

He doesn't call it special meat. He uses technical words to refer to what is a human but will never be a person, to what is always a product.

Hoy ya vende brochettes de orejas y dedos a las que apoda “brochettes mixtas”. Vende licores con glóbulos oculares. Lengua a la vinagreta.

Su cerebro le advierte que hay palabras que encubren el mundo. Hay palabras que son convenientes, higiénicas, legales.

Parents who name their children after themselves are stripping them of an identity, reminding them who they belong to.

They love one another because they repulse one another.

Outside the secure space of the circle, vulgarity accumulates. Ada loathes vulgarity because it's there that misery hides. She knows that misery is destructive and, as such, ephemeral.

Because hatred gives one strength to go on; it maintains the fragile structure, it weaves the threads together so that emptiness doesn’t take over everything. He wishes he could hate someone for the death of his son.

The feelings return so clearly when I write that I don’t doubt the faithfulness of my memories, my fabrications. I try to capture that present, that now, but it blurs with every word drawn, every time I use this insufficient language.

There's a vibration, a subtle and fragile heat, that makes a living being particularily delicious. You're extracting life by the mouthful. It's the pleasure of knowing that because of your intent, your actions, this being has ceased to exist. It's the feeling of a complex and precious organism expitring little by little, and also becoming part of you. For always, I fine this miracle fascinating. This possibility of an indissoluble union.

he also does it as a means of appeasing the Scavengers and their hunger. The craving for meat is dangerous.

Cannibalism, another word that could cause him major problems

ears

You’re not one of those veganoids now, are you?

Jasmine is only able to stretch out her arms desperately toward her son.

The words are there, encapsulated. They're rotting behind the madness.

At times, it seems she's thinking like she really can.

People always confessed things to him. He thinks it's because he's a good listener and isn't interested in talking about himself.

Today I'm the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle.

Three old women are walking together. Arm in arm they weave a symbiosis outside of time.

Not long after, they began to breed people as animals to supply the massive demand for meat.

But that’s what’s incredible, that we accept our excesses, that we normalize them, that we embrace our primitive essence.

He doesn’t call it special meat. He uses technical words to refer to what is a human but will never be a person, to what is always a product.

Él usa las palabras técnicas para referirse a eso que es un humano, pero nunca va a llegar a ser una persona, a eso que es siempre un producto.

No entiendo por qué nos parece atractiva la sonrisa de una persona. Con la sonrisa uno está mostrando el esqueleto".

How could things not have changed after the attacks? It was in all the papers. No one wants their dead family member to be eaten en route to the cemetery, Nélida.

since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. The Transition has enabled us to be less hypocritical.

There’s something admirable in her artificial indifference. There’s something about her he’d like to break.

Lucía has made me feel things I’ve forgotten, like mercy. It’s no longer silent dynamite, but something else; it’s like a new heart, beating inside the old one.

Le horrorizaban los rasgos monstruosos de lo cotidiano. Esas cosas que miramos, pero no vemos, de las cuales no conocemos la verdadera esencia.

I know that when I die somebody’s going to sell my flesh on the black market, one of my awful distant relatives. That’s why I smoke and drink, so I taste bitter and no one gets any pleasure out of my death.” She takes a quick drag and says, “Today I’m the butcher, tomorrow I might be the cattle.

He knows he can raise her, that it’s permitted. He’s aware there are people who do so, and who eat their domestic head alive, part by part. They say the meat tastes better, claim it’s really fresh. Tutorials are available that explain how, when, and where to make the cuts so the product doesn’t die early.

I know that when I die somebody's going to sell my flesh on the black market, one of my awful distant relatives. That's why I smoke and drink, so I taste bitter, and no one gets any pleasure out of my death.

He wishes he could anesthetize himself and live without feeling anything. Act automatically, observe, breathe, and nothing more. See everything, understand, and not talk. But the memories are there, they remain with him.

One word to sum up and classify the unfathomable. An empty word. Change, transformation, shift: synonyms that appear to mean the same thing, though the choice of one over the other speaks to a distinct view of the world.

Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,’ his father said, ‘but he flew, do you see what I mean son? He was able to fly. It doesn't matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds

curiosidad, pero me fui asqueada. Sentí olor a rabia como si hubiese espinas en el aire, pero no me fui por eso. Me fui porque cuando vi los estantes sin libros me quedé sin aliento, y un dolor agudo me golpeó en el pecho,

Everyone says that he fell because he flew too close to the sun,” his father said, “but he flew, do you see what I mean, Son? He was able to fly. It doesn’t matter if you fall, if you were a bird for even just a few seconds

Here everyone uses an umbrella when they go out. It’s only logical.” “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the umbrella industry saw an opportunity and the government got in on it?” “You always think there’s some conspiracy when there isn’t.

Él cree que a ella nunca le interesó la maternidad, que los tuvo porque tener hijos es uno de los proyectos que forman parte del desarrollo natural de la vida, de la misma manera que hacer la fiesta de quince, casarse, remodelar la casa y comer carne.

Those head have been selected for the game reserve. The specialists examine them and pick the ones in the best physical condition. The hunters need prey that challenges them, they want to chase after the head, they’re not interested in sitting targets.

Spanel has an arrested beauty about her. It disturbs him that there’s something feminine beneath the brutal aura she takes great care to give off. There’s something admirable in her artificial indifference. There’s something about her he’d like to break.

What he wants to do is cry and hug his father, but he looks at the body as though it were a stranger’s. Now his father is free from the madness, he thinks, from this horrific world, and he feels something like relief, but in fact the stone in his chest is getting bigger.

He goes out to untie the female from the tree where he left her. She hasn’t taken the rope off her neck. Of course, he thinks, she doesn’t know she can. He moves toward her and she begins to tremble. She looks at the ground. Urinates. He takes her to the barn and ties her to the door of a broken and rusted truck.

It’s been a long time since he felt that this house was his home. It was a space in which to sleep and eat. A place of broken words and silences encapsulated between walls, of accumulated sadnesses that splintered the air, scraped away at it, split open the particles of oxygen. A house where madness was brewing, where it lurked, imminent.

Maybe one day, in some future now, someone will read what I have written and learn of our existence. That we were part of a Sacred Sisterhood and lived on a sliver of land that remained pure, resplendent, thanks to the piety of the Enlightened. Or maybe they’ll become dust and return to the earth, fertilizing it, nourishing the roots of a tree, and our story will be understood through the leaves that oxygenate the collapsed world.

When she calms down a little, he stands up and grabs her by the hair. Jasmine, now only able to move her hands, is trying to reach her son. She wants to speak, to scream, but there are no sounds. He picks up the club he brought from the kitchen and hits her on the forehead, right where she’s been branded. Jasmine falls to the floor, stunned, unconscious. Cecilia jumps when she hears the thud and looks at him without understanding. “Why?” she yells. “She could have given us more children.

When he touches his father's hands, he finds that they're freezing and can't help but move his away. He doesn't feel anything. What he wants to do is cry and hug his father, but he looks at the body as though it were a stranger's. Now his father is free from the madness, he thinks, from this horrific world, and he feels something like relief, but in fact the stone in his chest is getting bigger. He goes over to the window that opens onto the garden. A hummingbird hovers right at the level of his eyes. For a few seconds, the bird seems to be watching him. He wishes he could touch it, but it moves away quickly and disappears. He thinks there's no way that something so beautiful and small could cause harm. He thinks just maybe the hummingbird is his father's spirit saying goodbye. It's then that he feels the stone shift in his chest and the tears begin to fall