Quotes from Strange Pilgrims

“The fact is that being seductive is an addiction that can never be satisfied.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“أحمد الله أنني أدفع ثمن حماقاتي غاليًا !”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“I continued working without a break, but in the middle of the third story...I felt myself tiring more than if I had been working on a novel. The same thing happened with the fourth. In fact, I did not have the energy to finish them. Now I know why: The effort involved in writing a short story is as intense as beginning a novel, where everything must be defined in the first paragraph: structure, tone, style, rhythm, length, and sometimes even the personality of a character. All the rest is the pleasure of writing, the most intimate, solitary pleasure one can imagine, and if the rest of one's life is not spent correcting the novel, it is because the same iron rigor needed to begin the book is required to end it. But a story has no beginning, no end: Either it works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, my own experience, and the experience of others, shows that most of the time it is better for one's health to start again in another direction, or toss the story in the wastebasket. Someone, I don't remember who, made the point with this comforting phrase: "Good writers are appreciated more for what they tear up than for what they publish.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“كان قد أقلع عن تناول القهوة منذ ثلاثين عاما بأمر من أطبائه، و لكنه قال:" إذا تأكدت يوما من أنني سأموت، سأعود إلى تناول القهوة". و ربما واتته تلك الساعة الآن !”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“La coquetería es un vicio que no se sacia con nada.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“She was beautiful and lithe, with soft skin the color of bread and eyes like green almonds, and she had straight black hair that reached to her shoulders, and an aura of antiquity that could just as well have been Indonesian as Andean. She was dressed with subtle taste: a lynx jacket, a raw silk blouse with very delicate flowers, natural linen trousers, and shoes with a narrow stripe the color of bougainvillea. ‘This is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ I thought, when I saw her pass by with the stealthy stride of a lioness, while I waited in the check-in line at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for the plane to New York.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Hacía todo de un modo metódico y parsimonioso, como si no hubiera nada que no estuviera previsto para ella desde su nacimiento.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Sólo entonces caí en la cuenta de que los vecinos de asiento en los aviones, al igual que los matrimonios viejos, no se dan los buenos días al despertar. Tampoco ella.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Soñé que asistía a mi propio entierro, a pie, caminando entre un grupo de amigos vestidos de luto solemne, pero con un ánimo de fiesta. Todos parecíamos dichosos de estar juntos. Y yo más que nadie, por aquella grata oportunidad que me daba la muerte para estar con mis amigos de América Latina, los más antiguos, los más queridos, los que no veía desde hacía más tiempo. Al final de la ceremonia, cuando empezaron a irse, yo intenté acompañarlos, pero uno de ellos me hizo ver con una severidad terminante que para mí se había acabado la fiesta. «Eres el único que no puede irse», me dijo. Sólo entonces comprendí que morir es no estar nunca más con los amigos.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“A modo de disculpa le pregunte si creía en los amores a primera vista "claro que si", me dijo. "Los imposibles son los otros".”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Está mal que tengan en el cuarto de servicio un bote de remos que no les sirve para nada — dijo el padre—. Pero está peor que quieran tener además equipos de buceo.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“E' stata una strana esperienza creativa che merita di essere spiegata, anche solo perché i bambini che da grandi vogliono diventare scrittori sappiamo fin d'ora quanto è insaziabile e corrosivo il vizio di scrivere.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“y entonces comprendió que había valido la pena esperar tantos y tantos anos, y haber sufrido tanto en la oscuridad, aunque solo hubiera sido para vivir aquel instante.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Se le acabo la mitad de la vida en el dormitorio frente a los escombros del único hombre que había amado, y que permaneció en el letargo durante casi treinta anos, tendido en la cama de sus amores juveniles sobre un colchón de cuero de chivo.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Tak ada gunanya kamu terus berdoa," kata petugas, tanpa sikap ramah yang dia tunjukkan sebelumnya. "Bahkan Tuhan pun pergi berlibur di bulan Agustus.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Bawakan juga kopil" pesannya dalam bahasa Prancis yang sempurna. Dia pun memperinci pesanan tanpa memperhatikan makna gandanya. "Italian style, yang cukup kuat untuk membangkitkan orang mati.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

“Dia meminumnya tanpa gula, menyesapnya pelan-pelan, dan kemudian membalikkan cangkir di atas cawan agar ampas kopinya, setelah bertahun-tahun lamanya, punya waktu untuk menuliskan takdirnya. Kenangan rasa kopi itu telah menyelamatkannya dari pikiran-pikiran suram.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, quote from Strange Pilgrims

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Popular quotes

“Saudi Arabia, and began having children, Osama bin Laden completed his high school education at the Al-Thager”
― Jean Sasson, quote from Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

“Ignorance has never been the problem. The problem was and continues to be unexamined confidence in western civilization and the unwarranted certainty of Christianity. And arrogance. Perhaps it is unfair to judge the past by the present, but it is also necessary.

If nothing else, an examination of the past—and of the present, for that matter—can be instructive. It shows us that there is little shelter and little gain for Native peoples in doing nothing. So long as we possess one element of sovereignty, so long as we possess one parcel of land, North America will come for us, and the question we have to face is how badly we wish to continue to pursue the concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. How important is it for us to maintain protected communal homelands? Are our traditions and languages worth the cost of carrying on the fight? Certainly the easier and more expedient option is simply to step away from who we are and who we wish to be, sell what we have for cash, and sink into the stewpot of North America.

With the rest of the bones.

No matter how you frame Native history, the one inescapable constant is that Native people in North America have lost much. We’ve given away a great deal, we’ve had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation. But this need not happen. Native cultures aren’t static. They’re dynamic, adaptive, and flexible, and for many of us, the modern variations of older tribal traditions continue to provide order, satisfaction, identity, and value in our lives. More than that, in the five hundred years of European occupation, Native cultures have already proven themselves to be remarkably tenacious and resilient.

Okay.

That was heroic and uncomfortably inspirational, wasn’t it? Poignant, even. You can almost hear the trumpets and the violins. And that kind of romance is not what we need. It serves no one, and the cost to maintain it is too high.

So, let’s agree that Indians are not special. We’re not … mystical. I’m fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.”
― Thomas King, quote from The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

“Let Go.
Let Me Have It.
Let Me Have You.”
― Adriane Leigh, quote from The Mourning After

“Love is never perfect, big brother. It's what you make of the imperfections in it that makes the ride worthwhile.”
― Jay Crownover, quote from Rome

“Humans fear death so much, but there is no death,” he whispers. “There is only the illusion of it. We can never cease to be. We must stay like this. Forever.”
― Cynthia Hand, quote from Radiant

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