The Autumn of the Patriarch Quotes

“...the day shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“أجيبيه بنعم حتى ولو كنتي تموتين فزعاً ، وحتى لو ندمتِ فيما بعد ، لأنكِ على أية حال ستندمين طوال حياتكِ إن أنتي أجبتيه بلا .”
― غابرييل غارسيا ماركيز, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“an old man with no destiny with our never knowing who he was, or what he was like, or even if he was only a figment of the imagination, a comic tyrant who never knew where the reverse side was and where the right of this life which we loved with an insatiable passion that you never dared even to imagine out of the fear of knowing what we knew only too well that it was arduous and ephemeral but there wasn't any other, general, because we knew who we were while he was left never knowing it forever with the soft whistle of his rupture of a dead old man cut off at the roots by the slash of death, flying through the dark sound of the last frozen leaves of his autumn toward the homeland of shadows of the truth of oblivion, clinging to his fear of the rotting cloth of death's hooded cassock and alien to the clamor of the frantic crowds who took to the streets singing hymns of joy at the jubilant news of his death and alien forevermore to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilation and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“...as he discovered in the course of his uncountable years that a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth...”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“Sabía que estaba condenado sin remedio a no morir de amor.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“...you'll see, he said, they'll go back to dividing everything up among the priests, the gringos and the rich, and nothing for the poor, naturally, because they've always been so fucked up that the day that shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole...”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“fear of death is the amber of happiness”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“Había empezado a vislumbrar que no se vive, qué carajo, se sobrevive, se aprende demasiado tarde que hasta las vidas más dilatadas y útiles no alcanzan para nada más que para aprender a vivir.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“...y nada para los pobres, por supuesto, porque esos estarán siempre tan jodidos que el día en que la mierda tenga algún valor los pobres nacerán sin culo...”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“no pudo reprimir el impulso de su orgullo materno y exclamó en voz alta ante el cuerpo diplomático en pleno que si yo hubiera sabido que mi hijo iba a ser presidente de la república lo hubiera mandado a la escuela,”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“and yet we didn’t believe it now that it was, and not because we really didn’t believe it but because we no longer wanted it to be true, we had ended up not understanding what would become of us without him, what would become of our lives after him,”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“...se aprende demasiado tarde que hasta las vidas más dilatadas y útiles no alcanzan para nada más que para aprender a vivir...”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“we’ve had more enemies than we had soldiers,”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“they brought the Bible and syphilis, they made people believe that life was easy, mother, that everything is gotten with money, that blacks carry a contagion, they tried to convince our soldiers that the nation is a business and that the sense of honor is a brother invented by the government so that soldiers would fight for free”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“alla fine di tanti e tanti anni di illusioni sterili aveva cominciato a congetturare che non si vive, cazzo, si sopravvive, s'impara troppo tardi che perfino le vite più estese e utili non sono sufficienti ad altro che a imparare a vivere”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“الكذب هو أنسب بكثير من الشك كما أنه أنفع من الحب وأبقى من الحقائق.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“الخوف من الموت هو رماد السعاده.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“with every six heads sixty enemies are produced and for every sixty six hundred are produced and then six thousand and then six million, the whole country, God damn it, we’ll never end,”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“they scrutinized the universe on the dial of the small radio through the interference of jeers from fugitive planets”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“I'm tired of begging God to overthrow my son, because all this business of living in the presidential palace is like having the lights on all the time”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“God damn it, just a good minister of health which is the only thing anyone really needs in life, and maybe another one with a good hand for what has to be put in writing”
― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“un hombre cuyo poder había sido tan grande que alguna vez preguntó qué horas son y le habían contestado las que usted ordene mi general,”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“Самой долгой и деятельной жизни хватает лишь на то, чтобы научиться жить - в самом конце!”
― Габриел Гарсия Маркес, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“una tarde de enero habíamos visto una vaca contemplando el crepúsculo desde el balcón presidencial, imagínese, una vaca en el balcón de la patria, qué cosa más inicua, qué país de mierda,”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“ella lo comprendió tan bien que en la primera tregua del miedo le había ordenado sin pedirle por favor general que me abra la ventana para que entre un poco de fresco, y él la abrió, que la volviera a cerrar porque me da la luna en la cara,”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“con la orden irrepetible de que en un plazo máximo de cuarentiocho horas lo encuentren vivo y me lo traen y si lo encuentran muerto me lo traen vivo y si no lo encuentran me lo traen,”
― Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del patriarca

“الخطأ الوحيد الذي على رجل متمتع بالسلطة والنفوذ ألا يقترفه في حياته مرة واحدة هو أن يفرض أمرا من دون أن يكون متيقنا من إطاعته.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“،من دون التوصل إلى تمييز الوطنيين الجيدين من المنافقين في تلك العاصفة من صيحات الترحيب إذ أننا لم نكن قد اكتشفنا بعد أن الأكثر شبهة هم الذين كانوا يصرخون بأصوات أعلى عاش الفحل،عاش الجنرال.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

“our two postcard hearts were frightened in unison under the tenacious look of the unfathomable old man who kept on eating one banana after another”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch