Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.

The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.

The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness.

I must try and break through the cliches about Latin America. Superpowers and other outsiders have fought over us for centuries in ways that have nothing to do with our problems. In reality we are all alone.

One never quite stops believing, some doubt remains forever".

Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.

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.