In the beginning, when the world was new and nothing had a name, my father took me to see the ice.

Fame is very agreeable, but the bad thing is that it goes on 24 hours a day.

They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.

This was when I heard that the first symptom of old age is when you begin to resemble your father.

He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers with Colonel Gerineldo Marquez, and in which Amarana Ursula had sewn the tiny clothing for the child, and in that flash of lucidity he became aware that he was unable to bear in his soul the crushing weight of so much past.

Cease, cows, life is short.

Aureliano not only understood by then, he also lived his brother’s experiences as something of his own, for on one occasion when the latter was explaining in great detail the mechanism of love, he interrupted him to ask: “What does it feel like?” José Arcadio gave an immediate reply: “It’s like an earthquake.