of Gabriel García Márquez
.
The book was originally published in Spanish in 2002, with an English translation by Edith Grossman
published in 2003.
Living to Tell the Tale tells the story of García Márquez' life from 1927 through to 1950, ending with his proposal to his wife.
Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.
Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past...
Nostalgia, as always, had wiped away bad memories and magnified the good ones.
Now you don't have to say yes because your heart is saying it for you.
Children's lies are signs of great talent.
But I believe without any doubt at all that our greatest good fortune was that even in the most extreme difficulties we might lose our patience but never our sense of humor.
It was impossible to conceive of two creatures so different who got along so well and loved each other so much.
From the time they turned one they were tossed from the balconies of the kitchens, first with life preserves so they would lose their fear of the water, and then without life preservers so they would lose their respect for death.
"There are no two men in this world more similar than you and him," she told me. "And that's the worst thing for having a conversation."
... no sooner had you done something than someone else appeared who threatened to do it better.