She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.

Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.

No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you've already had.

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

It was the year they fell into devastating love. Neither one could do anything except think about the other, dream about the other, and wait for letters with the same impatience they felt when they answered them.

but he only found her in the image that saturated his private and terrible solitude.

When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path along which you have led me, I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is my undoing and my end.