Happy Birthday, Mr. Marquez

Today is Gabriel Garcia Marquez' birthday. If you don't know who he is, you can read about him here. He's been hugely influential on me, for the lushness of his language, for his imagery (yeah! Magical realism rules!) and for his bravery.

To celebrate his life and work, here are a few of my favorite quotes from his work.While he's written with enormous eloquence on love, I've selected a wider variety for your perusal.

Thank you, Mr. Marquez, for everything.




“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

“I've always imagined heaven to be a kind of library”

“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but ... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

“There is always something left to love.”

“The world must be all fucked up," he said then, "when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.”

“A lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth.”

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”

“Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.” 

“Then the writing became so fluid that I sometimes felt as if I were writing for the sheer pleasure of telling a story, which may be the human condition that most resembles levitation.”

“Florentina Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months and eleven days and nights. 'Forever,' he said.”


(c)2012 Laura S. Packer