Bon Voyage, Mr President Quotes

“But she thought he had squandered these gifts of God in the service of pretense.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“He faced Lázara’s African eyes, which scrutinized him without pity, and tried to win her over with the eloquence of an old master.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“All of us usurping an honor we did not deserve with an office we did not know how to fill. Some pursue only power, but most are looking for even less: a job.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“The President told them he had chosen the island of Martinique for his exile because of his friendship with the poet Aimé Césaire, who at that time had just published his Cahier d’un retour au pays natal, and had helped him begin a new life. With what remained of his wife’s inheritance, the President bought a house made of noble wood in the hills of Fort-de-France, with screens at the windows and a terrace overlooking the sea and filled with primitive flowers, where it was a pleasure to sleep with the sound of crickets and the molasses-and-rum breeze from the sugar mills. There he stayed with his wife, fourteen years older than he and an invalid since the birth of their only child, fortified against fate by his habitual rereading of the Latin classics, in Latin, and by the conviction that this was the final act of his life. For years he had to resist the temptation of all kinds of adventures proposed to him by his defeated partisans.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“For the first time she became interested in the guest, whose wit could not hide his sadness. Lázara’s curiosity increased when he finished his coffee and turned the cup upside down in the saucer so the grounds could settle.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“In the end, what determined her behavior was the weight of her conjugal loyalty.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“He finished the paper at his leisure, floating on the sumptuous cellos of Brahms, until the pain was stronger than the analgesic of the music. Then he looked at the small gold watch and chain that he carried in his vest pocket and took his two midday tranquilizers with the last swallow of Évian water. Before removing his glasses he deciphered his destiny in the coffee grounds and felt an icy shudder: He saw uncertainty there.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“Following his doctors’ orders, he had given up the habit of coffee more than thirty years before, but had said, “If I ever knew for certain that I was going to die, I would drink it again.” Perhaps the time had come.

“Bring me a coffee too,” he ordered in perfect French. And specified without noticing the double meaning, “Italian style, strong enough to wake the dead.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“Inside the lights burned in the middle of the day, and the string quartet was playing a piece by Mozart full of foreboding. At the counter the President picked up a newspaper from the pile reserved for customers, hung his hat and cane on the rack, put on his gold-rimmed glasses to read at the most isolated table, and only then became aware that autumn had arrived.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“His clinical style was so dramatic that the final verdict seemed merciful: The President had to submit to a dangerous and inescapable operation. He asked about the margin of risk, and the old physician enveloped him in an indeterminate light. “We could not say with certainty,” he answered.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“He was one more incognito in the city of illustrious incognitos. He wore the dark blue pin-striped suit, brocade vest, and stiff hat of a retired magistrate. He had the arrogant mustache of a musketeer, abundant blue-black hair with romantic waves, a harpist’s hands with the widower’s wedding band on his left ring finger, and joyful eyes. Only the weariness of his skin betrayed the state of his health.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“On his first visit to Geneva the lake had been calm and clear, and there were tame gulls that would eat out of one’s hand, and women for hire who seemed like six-in-the-afternoon phantoms with organdy ruffles and Now the only possible woman he could see was a flower vendor on the deserted pier. It was difficult for him to believe that time could cause so much ruin not only in his life but in the world.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President

“HE SAT ON a wooden bench under the yellow leaves in the deserted park, contemplating the dusty swans with both his hands resting on the silver handle of his cane, and thinking about death.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Bon Voyage, Mr President