"From the book I got the impression that that the Maya’s strength was not in their military prowess, but in their ability to absorb invaders, adopt some of the new customs, retain some of their own. For the most part, they held their own until the Spanish came along. The Spanish conquistadors overcame the Mayan armies; the Catholic Church subdued the survivors. The friars seemed, from the book’s account, to be concerned with saving the heathens’ souls even if it meant ending their lives."

““You may learn a few things,” she said. “And that’s always good.”

“What do you do when you are falling? Do you reach out and try to grab for support? If you aren’t careful, you will pull others down with you. Unless you are very careful.”

““Picture postcards never show the bugs,” I told her. “Stinging ants, wasps, fleas, roaches the size of your hand. Postcards never show the heat.”

“Gazing at those beautiful stars, Bailey realized that nothing mattered to them. All the achievements of humankind were insignificant. Love and hate, death and life, honor and dishonor, knowledge or ignorance—what did any of that matter in the face of this austere and heartless splendor?”

“Do not look for revelations in the ancient ruins. You will find here only what you bring: bits of memory, wisps of the past as thin as clouds in the summer, fragments of stone that are carved with symbols that sometimes almost make sense.”

“Metaphor is reality once removed.”