"Desert: luminous, fossilized network of inhuman intelligence, of a radical indifference—the indifference not merely of the sky, but of the geological undulations, where the metaphysical passions of space and time alone crystallize. Here the terms of desire are turned upside down each day, and night annihilates them. But wait for the dawn to rise, with the awakening of the fossil sounds, the animal silence."
"On Sunday evenings when the band played, youths would stream in one direction round the Plaza and in the opposite direction maidens, just as apart from one another and just as aware of one another as I have seen them in Mexican cities. Older women moved nunlike…with soft black shawls over their heads, the fringe hanging down their dresses."