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About this quote

What does it mean?
The narrator notes that neither The Eye nor anyone else ever says goodbye.
In plain terms
No one says goodbye here.
What can you take from it?
Sometimes we leave without warning.

Where it applies

  • losing friends
  • traveling
  • moving on

Putting it to work

  • accept departures
  • value presence
  • move forward

Questions to consider

  • Why do people avoid goodbyes?
  • How do you leave?

Another view

Some people do say goodbye.

More from Roberto Bolano

  1. 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 v…

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  2. 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 …

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  3. We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.

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