One Hundred Years of Solitude

"They seemed to be awake in a world that was still asleep."

"The world was changing and they were not aware of it."

"It was then that she realized that death is not the end."

"He was still too young to know that the past is full of such reversals."

"One could see that they had been married for many years by the way they moved in unison, like a single organism."

"Remedios the Beauty did not say goodbye to anyone, merely lay down on her bed to wait for the six o'clock train."

"She really had been through death, but returned because she could not endure the solitude of death."

"The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point."

"It was as if God had decided to test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between doubt and revelation."

"He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude."

"The beauty of Macondo lay in its endless capacity for renewal."

"Even the most solitary creatures eventually crave connection."

"The manuscripts contained the entire history of Macondo, written as if it had not yet happened."

"War teaches nothing except the multiplicity of its own futility."

"He pursued her with the dedication of someone seeking redemption."

"The truly magical thing about Macondo was that nothing was impossible there."

"She loved him with an intensity that defied explanation."

"Time is a spiral, not a circle."

"In the end, we are nothing but the sum of our regrets."

"He had survived hell itself, only to discover purgatory was far worse."

"The mysteries of existence are not solved by reasoning, but by living."

"She understood then that all human effort is useless against the indifference of heaven."

"It was as if the laws of nature had been revoked."

"One must still have chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star, for one cannot love without pain and suffering."

"He was still thinking about it as if dreaming, even when awake."

"She would await him without rancor, without bitterness, with an unconditional surrender that resembled that of the fish to water."

"No matter the overwhelmingly profound convictions one might have, there is always something in the human heart that suggests even the most iron-clad decision is reversible."

"They were never again to recover the jasmine smell that Mrs. Iguarán had brought to the house."

"The past was not what had happened, but what one recalled."

"He really did look like a madman, but he was not mad."