and realized that death was not only a permanent probability, as he had always believed, but an immediate reality.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezOver the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezLittle by little, studying the infinite possibilities of a loss of memory, he realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use.... At the beginning of the road into the swamp they put up a sign that said "Macondo" and another larger one on the main street that said "God exists".
Gabriel Garcia MarquezWhat does he say?' he asked. 'Heโs very sad,โ รrsula answered, โbecause he thinks that youโre going to die.' 'Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesnโt die when he should but when he can.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez