Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Tennía que enseñarle a pensar en el amor como un estado de gracia que o era un medio para anda, sino un origen y un fin en si mismo”

“Poco antes del final, con un destello de júbilo, se dio cuenta de pronto que nunca había estado tan cerca de alguien a quien amaba tanto”

“el corazón tiene más cuartos que un hotel de putas”

“[...] not knowing what he was doing because he did not know where his feet were or where his head was, or whose feet or whose head, and feeling that he could no longer resist the glacial rumbling of his kidneys and the air of his intestines, and fear, and the bewildered anxiety to flee and at the same time stay forever in that exasperated silence and that fearful solitude.”

“HE had fled from her in an attempt to wipe out her memory, not only through distance but by means of a muddled fury that his companions a arms took to be boldness, but the more her image wallowed in the dung hill of war, the more the was resembled Amarant.”

“No matter what you do this year or in the next hundred, you will be dead forever.”

“I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world.”

“Just as real events are forgotten, some that never were can be in our memories as if they happened.”

“I never had intimate friends, and the few who came close are in New York. By which I mean they're dead, because that's where I suppose condemned souls go in order not to endure the truth of their past lives.”

“Morality, too, is a question of time.”

“Because he had not done what she, with her heart in her mouth, had hoped he would do, which was to be a man: deny everything, and swear on his life it was not true, and grow indignant at the false accusation, and shout curses at this ill-begotten society that did not hesitate to trample on one's honor, and remain imperturbable even when forced with crushing proofs of his disloyalty.”

“...Un presidente liberal no le parecía ni más ni menos que un presidente conservador, sólo que peor vestido.”

“Pero si algo habían aprendido juntos era que la sabiduría nos llega cuando ya no sirve para nada.”

“I discovered the miracle that all things that sound are music, including the dishes and silverware in the dishwasher, as long as they fulfill the illusion of showing us where life is heading.”

“It was, at last, real life, with my heart safe and condemned to die of happy love in the joyful agony of any day after my hundredth birthday.”

“I detected the fragrance of Delgadina's soul as she slept on her side.”

“Trying to provoke him into a terrifying sentence, I said: The only definitive thing is death. Yes, he said, but it isn't easy to get there when one's condition is as good as yours.”

“But the next morning, while night owls slept, I climbed trembling to her cubicle and woke her, weeping aloud with a crazed love that lasted until it was carried away without mercy by the violent wind of real life.”

“From then on I began to measure my life not by years but by decades.”

“Don't let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love.”

“Thank God I found my Chinaman in time. It's like being married to your little finger, but he's all mine.”

“Do whatever you want, but don't lose that child," she said. "There's no greater misfortune than dying alone.”

“The truth is I'm getting old, I said. We already are old, she said with a sigh. What happens is that you don't feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.”

“She sensed it, saw my eyes wet with tears, and only then must have discovered I was no longer the man I had been, and I endured her glance with a courage I never thought I had.”

“In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.”

“jealousy knows more than truth does.”

“The truth was that I could not manage my soul, and I was becoming aware of old age because of my weakness in the face of love.”

“one ages more and with more intensity in pictures than in reality.”

“I did not bathe or shave or brush my teeth, because love taught me too late that you groom yourself for someone, you dress and perfume yourself for someone, and I'd never had anyone to do that for.”

“I told her about my life, I read into her ear the first drafts of my Sunday columns in which, without my saying so, she and she alone was present.”

“the world isn't what it once was because there aren't many men like you left.”

“I became aware that the invincible power that has moved the world is unrequited, not happy, love.”

“I was on the verge of ruin but well-compensated by the miracle of still being alive at my age.”

“She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she'll be sorry if she isn't guided by her heart.”

“Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love.”

“The driver warned me: Be careful, scholar, they kill in that house. I replied: If it's for love it doesn't matter.”

“I want the same one, the way she always is, without failures, without fights, without bad memories.”

“those who do not sing cannot even imagine the joy of singing.”

“From then on I had her in my memory with so much clarity that I could do what I wanted with her. I changed the color of her eyes according to my state of mind: the color of water when she woke, the color of syrup when she laughed, the color of light when she was annoyed. I dressed her according to the age and condition that suited my changes of mood: a novice in love at twenty, a parlor whore at forty, the queen of Babylon at seventy, a saint at one hundred.”

“Why were you so old when we met? I answered with the truth: Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel.”

“He shook my hand and said goodbye with a sentence that might have been either good advice or a threat: "Take good care of yourself.”

“He thought the column was magnificent, everything it said about old age was the best he had ever read, and it made no sense to end it with a decision that seemed more like a civil death.”

“It occurred to me that among the charms of old age are the provocations our young female friends permit themselves because they think we are out of commission.”

“In a belated moment of inspiration, I decided to finish it with the announcement that with this column I was bringing to a happy conclusion a long and worthy life without the sad necessity of having to die.”

“I could not resist the temptation to ask: Tell me something, Damiana: what do you recall? I wasn't recalling anything, she said, but your question makes me remember. I felt a weight in my chest. I've never fallen in love, I told her. She replied without hesitation: I have. And she concluded, not interrupting her work: I cried over you for twenty-two years. My heart skipped a beat. Looking for a dignified way out, I said: We would have made a good team. Well, it's wrong of you to say so now, she said, because you're no good to me anymore even as a consolation. As she was leaving the house, she said in the most natural way: You won't believe me but thanks be to God, I'm still a virgin.”

“In a solemn way, as if he had just thought of it, he said: The world is moving ahead. Yes, I said, it's moving ahead, but it's revolving around the sun.”

“Her nakedness was not absolute, for like Manet's _Olympia__, behind her ear she had a poisonous flower with orange petals, and she also wore a gold bangle on her right wrist and a necklace of tiny pearls. I imagined I would never see anything more exciting for as long as I lived, and today I can confirm that I was right.”

“Today, retired but not defeated, I enjoy the sacred privilege of writing at home, with the phone off the hook so that no one can disturb me, and without a censor looking over my shoulder to see what I am writing.”

“...thanks to the unwanted privilege of being the oldest employee.”

“Even when I don't have to write, I arrange it every morning with the pointless rigor that has made me lose so many lovers.”