Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“El mundo era tan reciente que muchas cosas carecían de nombre, y para nombrarlas había que señalarlas con el dedo".”

“Even when the winds of misfortune blow, amazing things can still happen.”

“We are the orphans of our son.”

“Ella interponía siempre una barrera de rabia para que no se le notara el miedo. Y en ese caso, el más terrible de todos, que era el miedo de quedarse sin él.”

“«Le idee non sono di nessuno» disse. Disegnò in aria con l'indice una serie di cerchi continui e concluse:«Volano lì in giro, come gli angeli.»”

“Lo guardò negli occhi: «Non teme di dannarsi?»«Credo di esserlo già, ma non per lo Spirito Santo» disse Delaura senza allarme «Ho sempre creduto che tiene da conto più l'amore che la fede.»”

“Non c'è medicina che guarisca quello che non guarisce la felicità”

“«Come siamo lontani!» sospirò.«Da cosa?»«Da noi stessi» disse il vescovo.”

“Lei gli domandò in quei giorni se era vero, come dicevano le canzoni, che l'amore poteva tutto."E' vero" rispose lui "ma farai bene a non crederci".”

“¿Crees que ella estará de acuerdo?- Ay, mi sabio triste, está bien que estés viejo, pero no pendejo –Dijo Rosa Cabarcas muerta de risa-. Esa pobre criatura está lela de amor por ti.”

“Ay de mí, si es amor, cuanto atormenta.”

“Antes de volver a casa al día siguiente escribí en el espejo con el lápiz de labios: Niña mía, estamos solos en el mundo.”

“Así como los recuerdos reales se olvidan, también algunos que nunca fueron pueden estar en los recuerdos como si hubieran sido.”

“No tengo que decirlo, porque se me distingue a leguas: soy feo, tímido y anacrónico.”

“Es la vida, más que la muerte, la que no tiene límites.”

“Habían vivido juntos lo bastante para darse cuenta de que el amor era el amor en cualquier tiempo y en cualquier parte, pero tanto más denso cuanto más cerca de la muerte.”

“El amor se hace más grande y noble en la calamidad.”

“Tenía que enseñarle a pensar en el amor como un estado de gracia que no era un medio para nada, sino un origen y un fin en sí mismo.”

“Nada se parece tanto a una persona como la forma de su muerte.”

“Se puede estar enamorado de varias personas a la vez, y de todas con el mismo dolor, sin traicionar a ninguna.”

“El amor, si lo había, era una cosa aparte: otra vida.”

“Pero sabía, más por escarmiento que por experiencia, que una felicidad tan fácil no podría durar mucho tiempo.”

“Le enseñó lo único que tenía que aprender para el amor: que a la vida no la enseña nadie.”

“¿Dónde estás que no estás?”

“Los síntomas del amor son los mismos del cólera.”

“La muerte no era sólo una probabilidad permanente, como lo había sentido siempre, sino una realidad inmediata.”

“La sabiduría nos llega cuando ya no sirve para nada.”

“Cada quien es dueño de su propia muerte”

“El bisturí es la prueba mayor del fracaso de la medicina”

“We'll turn to ashes in this house without men, but. we won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing us weep”

“La citeva luni dupa intoarcerea sa, incepuse sa imbatrineasca atit de repede si intr-un chip atit de nelinistitor, incit in curind fu privit ca unul dintre acei strabunici inutili care se foiesc ca niste umbre prin odai, tirindu-si picioarele, amintindu-si cu glas tare de timpurile frumoase din trecut, si de care nimanui nu-i mai pasa si nici nu-si mai aminteste de ei pina in ziua cind ii gaseste morti, in zori, in patul lor.”

“One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.”

“cuando volví a este pueblo olvidado tratando de recomponer con tanta astillas dispersas el espejo roto de la memoria”

“El mundo avanza. Sí, le dije, avanza, pero dando vueltas alrededor del sol.”

“She managed to thank God for having been born before she lost herself in the inconceivable pleasure of that unbearable pain, splashing in the steaming marsh of the hammock which absorbed the explosion of blood like a blotter”

“También el amor se aprende”

“Cuando despierte - dijo- , recuérdame que me voy a casar con ella !”

“Todavia era demasiado joven para saber que la memoria del corazón elimina los malos recuerdos y magnifica los buenos, y que gracias a ese artificiologramos sobrellevar el pasado.”

“Esa mirada casual fue el origen de un cataclismo de amor que medio siglo después aún no había terminado.”

“Vedendolo così, vestito per lei in un modo così manifesto, non poté impedire il rossore di fuoco che le montò al viso. Si offuscò quando lo salutò, e lui si offuscò di più con il suo offuscamento. La coscienza di comportarsi come fidanzati li offuscò ancora di più, e la coscienza che tutti e due fossero offuscati finì per offuscarli fino al punto che il capitano Samaritano se ne accorse con un tremolio di compassione.”

“It was also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves to relating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.”

“And nevertheless, when they watched him leave the house, this man they themselves had urged to conquer the world, then they were the ones left with the terror that he would never return. That was their life. Love, if it existed, was something separate: another life.”

“Life...was nothing more than a system of atavistic contracts, banal ceremonies, preordained words, with which people entertained each other...The dominant sign in that paradise of provincial frivolity was the fear of the unknown”

“All that was needed was a shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera”

“Thinking that it would console him, she took a piece of charcoal and erased the innumerable loves that he still owed her for, and she voluntarily brought up her own most solitary sadnesses so as not to leave him alone in his weeping.”

“La ética -dijo- se imagina que los médicos somos de palo.”

“Look at the air, listen to the buzzing of the sun, the same as yesterday and the day before. Today is Monday too.”

“He was surprised to discover that when rich people were starving they looked so much like the poor”

“In his paradise in Lima he had spent a joyous night with a young girl who was covered with fine, straight down over every millimeter of her Bedouin skin. At dawn, while he was shaving, he looked at her lying naked in the bed, adrift in the peaceful sleep of a satisfied woman, and he could not resist the temptation of possessing her forever with a sacramental act. He covered her from head to foot with shaving lather, and with a pleasure like that of love he shaved her clean with his razor, sometimes using his right hand and sometimes his left as he shaved every part of her body, even the eyebrows that grew together, and left her doubly naked inside her magnificent newborn's body. She asked, her soul in shreds, if he really loved her, and he answered with the same ritual phrase he had strewn without pity in so many hearts throughout his life: "More than anyone else in this world.”

“The past was a lie, memory has no return, every spring gone by could never be recovered, and the wildest and most tenacious love is an ephemeral truth in the end”