“What does he say?' he asked.'He’s very sad,’ Úrsula answered, ‘because he thinks that you’re going to die.''Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”

“Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”

“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?"What other reason could there be?" Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. "For the great Liberal party."You're lucky because you know why," he answered. "As far as I'm concerned, I've come to realize only just now that I'm fighting because of pride."That's bad," Colonel Gerineldo Marquez said.Colonel Aureliano Buendia was amused at his alarm. "Naturally," he said. "But in any case, it's better than not knowing why you're fighting." He looked him in the eyes and added with a smile:Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone.”

“On the other hand, for years I did not listen to Mozart after I was assaulted by the perverse idea that Mozart does not exist, because when he is good he is Beethoven and when he is bad he is Haydn.”

“Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies.”

“This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had provided for him, and he was responsible to it.”

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice...”