Quotes from Gerald Martin

Writing books is a suicidal profession. No other demands as much time, as much work, as much dedication, by comparison with its immediate benefits. I don't think many readers finishing a book ask themselves how many hours of anguish and domestic calamities those two hundred pages have cost the author or how much he received for his work …

Years later he would add that Italians have "no other aim than to live" because they "discovered a long time ago that there is only one life and that certainty has made them allergic to cruelty.

Luisa Santiaga Márquez Iguarán de García had given birth to three more children since that time and this was her first return to Aracataca since her husband, Gabriel Eligio García, took her away to live in Barranquilla, leaving little "Gabito" in the care of his maternal grandparents,

this was her first return to Aracataca since her husband, Gabriel Eligio García, took her away to live in Barranquilla, leaving little "Gabito" in the care of his maternal grandparents,

Gabito would say later that he had no memory of his mother. She had left him before he could retain any memories at all.

had to beg a fare in the metro—missing the