The first conversation began awkwardly, although Espinoza had been expecting Pelletizer's call, as if both men found it difficult to say what sooner or later they would have to say. The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word fate used ten times and the word friendship twenty-four times. Liz Norton's name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word Paris was said seven times, Madrid, eight. The word love was spoken twice, once by each man. The word horror was spoken six times and the word happiness once (by Espinoza). The word solution was said twelve times. The word solipsism seven times. The world euphemism ten times. The word category, in the singular and the plural, nine times. The word structuralism once (Pelletizer). The term American literature three times. The words dinner or eating or breakfast or sandwich nineteen times. The words eye or hands or hair fourteen times. The conversation proceeded more smoothly.

— Roberto Bolaño

The heart of the matter is whether knowing evil (or sin or crime or whatever you want to call it) is random or purposeful. If it's purposeful, we can fight it, it's hard to defeat, but we have a chance, like two boxers in the same weight class, more or less. If it's random, on the other hand, we're fucked, and we'll just have to hope that God, if He exists, has mercy on us. And that's what it all comes down to.

— Roberto Bolaño

Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Georg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.

— Roberto Bolaño

... the novel, arguably the author's best, had a disquieting power, like a sleeping crocodile.

— Roberto Bolaño

The pain, or the memory of pain, that here was literally sucked away by something nameless until only a void was left. The knowledge that this question was possible: pain that turns finally into emptiness. The knowledge that the same equation applied to everything, more or less.

— Roberto Bolaño

There is a time for reciting poems and a time for fists.

— Roberto Bolaño

The road to wealth is sown with false starts and failures that should in no way discourage the poor who make good or our neighbors with new-found riches. We have to give it our all.

— Roberto Bolaño

The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.

— Roberto Bolaño

We're artists too, but we do a good job hiding it, don't we?

— Roberto Bolaño

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

— Roberto Bolaño