“Intimacy is not trapped within words. It passes through words. It passes. The truth is that intimates leave the room. Doors close. Faces move away from the window. Time passes. Voices recede into the dark. Death finally quiets the voice. And there is no way to deny it. No way to stand in the crowd, uttering one’s family language.”

—  Richard Rodríguez

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

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Richard Rodríguez127
American journalist and essayist 1944

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