22 quotes
The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Santiago Nasar had often told me that the smell of closed-in flowers had an immediate relation to death for him.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981)
Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry.
The Paris Review interview (1981)
But I believe without any doubt at all that our greatest good fortune was that even in the most extreme difficulties we might lose our patience but never our sense of humor.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Nostalgia, as always, had wiped away bad memories and magnified the good ones.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Because for you, quitting smoking would be like killing someone you love.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Now you don't have to say yes because your heart is saying it for you.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
...a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth ...
El Ontoño del Patriarica (1975)
Children's lies are signs of great talent.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
I would like for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where they turn you into a kind of merchandise.
The Paris Review interview (1981)
"There are no two men in this world more similar than you and him," she told me. "And that's the worst thing for having a conversation."
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
I couldn't tell you because even I don't know who I am yet.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past...
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.
The Paris Review interview (1981)
It was impossible to conceive of two creatures so different who got along so well and loved each other so much.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
Until I discovered the miracle that all things that sound are music, including dishes and silverware in the dishwasher, as long as they fulfill the illusion of showing us where life is heading.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
From the time they turned one they were tossed from the balconies of the kitchens, first with life preserves so they would lose their fear of the water, and then without life preservers so they would lose their respect for death.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
… no sooner had you done something than someone else appeared who threatened to do it better.
Living to Tell the Tale (2002)
It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.
The Paris Review interview (1981)