The vicious circle is perfect: foreign debt and foreign investment oblige us to multiply exports that they themselves devour. The task can't be accomplished with gentlemanly manners. To fulfill their function as hostages of foreign prosperity, Latin American workers must be held prisoner, either inside or outside of the jails.

The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing. Our part of the world, known today as Latin America, was precocious: it has specialized in losing ever since those remote time when Renaissance Europeans ventured across the ocean and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations.

Os guaraos, que habitam os subúrbios do Paraíso terrestre, chamam o arco-íris de serpente de colares e de mar de cima o céu. O raio é o resplendor da chuva. O amigo, meu outro coração. A alma, o sol do peito. a coruja, o amo da noite escura. Para dizer "bengala", dizem neto contínuo; e para dizer "perdoo", dizem esqueço.

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, faithful comrade of Hernán Cortes in the conquest of Mexico, wrote that they had arrived in America “to serve God and His Majesty and also to get riches.

The Spaniards owned the cow, but others drank the milk.

The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret: every year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth.