He spent six hours examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time.

It was a lone voice in the middle of the ocean, but it was heard at great depth and great distance.

In the plenitude of their relationship, Florentina Ariza asked himself which of the two was love: the turbulent bed or the peaceful Sunday afternoons, and Sara Noriega calmed him with the simple argument that love was everything they did naked. She said, 'Spiritual love from the waist up and physical love from the waist down.

This was when she asked him whether it was true that love conquered all, as the songs said. 'It is true', he replied, 'but you would do well not to believe it.

She asked him to come and see her that night. He agreed, in order to get away, knowing that he was incapable of going. But that night, in his burning bed, he understood that he had to go see her, even if he were not capable. He got dressed by feel, listening in the dark to his brother's calm breathing, the dry cough of his father in the next room, the asthma of the hens in the courtyard, the buzz of the mosquitoes, the beating of his heart, and the inordinate bustle of a world that he had not noticed until then, and he went out in the sleeping street.

the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end

At some point, you no longer feel pain. Sensation disappears and reason is dulled, until you lose all grasp of time and place.