What Uncle Leo XIII never suspected was that his nephew's courage did not come from the need to survive or from a brute indifference inherited from his father, but from a driving need for love, which no obstacle in this world or the next would ever break.

races condemned to 100 years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

She sensed it, saw my eyes wet with tears, and only then must have discovered I was no longer the man I had been, and I endured her glance with a courage I never thought I had.

For you was I born, for you do I have life, for you will I die, for you am I now dying.

I’ve remained a virgin for you.

He did not dare to console her, knowing that it would have been like consoling a tiger run thru by a spear.

Life had already given him sufficient reasons for knowing that no defeat was the final one.