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One Hundred Years of Solitude

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Overview

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the fictitious town of Macondo. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in world literature. It was recognized as one of the most important works of the Spanish language during the 4th International Conference of the Spanish Language held in Cartagena de Indias in March 2007.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“En la escuela desportillada donde experimentó por primera vez la seguridad del poder, a pocos metros del cuarto donde conoció la incertidumbre del amor, Arcadio encontró ridículo el formalismo de la muerte. En realidad no le importaba la muerte sino la vida, y por eso la sensación que experimentó cuando pronunciaron la sentencia no fue una sensación de miedo sino de nostalgia.”
— In the shattered schoolhouse where for the first time he had felt the security of power, a few feet from the room where he had come to know the uncertainty of love, Arcadio found the formality of death ridiculous. Death really did not matter to him but life did and therefore the sensation he felt when they gave their decision was not a feeling of fear but of nostalgia. He did not speak until they asked him for his last request.
“El secreto de una buena vejez no es otra cosa que un pacto honrado con la soledad.”
— The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.
“Uno no se muere cuando debe, sino cuando puede.”
— A person doesn't die when he should but when he can.
“Un minuto de reconciliación tiene más mérito que toda una vida de amistad.”
— One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship.
“La ansiedad del enamoramiento no encontraba reposo sino en la cama.”
— The anxiety of falling in love could not find repose except in bed.
“La ciudad de los espejos (o los espejismos) sería arrasada por el viento y desterrada de la memoria de los hombre en el instante en que Aureliano Babilonia acabara de descifrar los pergaminos, y que todo lo escrito en ellos era irrepetible desde siempre y para siempre, porque las estirpes condenadas a cien años de soledad no tenían una segunda oportunidad sobre la tierra.”
— The city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

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