# Quote — Roberto Bolaño, Last Evenings On Earth

> It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as the Eye, always tried to escape from violence even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around twenty years old when Salvador Allende died.

- Author: [Roberto Bolaño](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano.md)
- Book: [Last Evenings On Earth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano/last-evenings-on-earth.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roberto_Bola%C3%B1o#Last_Evenings_on_Earth_(2006)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [history](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano/last-evenings-on-earth/its-strange-how

## More from this book

> One day I heard that The Eye had left Mexico. I wasn't surprised that he hadn't said good-bye. The Eye never said good-bye to anyone. I never said good-bye to anyone either.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano/last-evenings-on-earth/one-day-i-heard.md)

> That night when he went back to his hotel, he wept for his dead children and all the other castrated boys, for his own lost youth, for those who were young no longer and those who died young, for those who fought for Salvador Allende and those who were too scared to fight.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano/last-evenings-on-earth/that-night-when.md)

Topics: [loss](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loss.md)

> The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roberto-bolano/last-evenings-on-earth/the-secret-story.md)

Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md)