Colombian author and Nobel laureate, Gabriel García Márquez, died two years ago at the age of 87 after battling cancer for almost 12 years. The Latin American writer recently stayed in the hospital for dehydration and a respiratory- and urinary-tract infection, but was released while he was "very fragile."
In 2012, it was reported that García Márquez's health was on the decline. According to The Guardian, the author's brother, Jaime García Márquez, told students in Cartagena, Colombia that his brother is suffering from dementia and was treated for lymphatic cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 1999.
"Dementia runs in our family and he's now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death," said Jaime, reports The Guardian. "Chemotherapy saved his life, but it also destroyed many neurons, many defences and cells, and accelerated the process. But he still has the humour, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had."
Known by his friends as "Gabo," the author is considered to be the most popular Spanish language author since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century. The writer won the Nobel prize in 1982 and is best known for novels, including: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), “Autumn of the Patriarch” (1975), “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985).
Here are 10 quotes from his work to remember Gabriel García Márquez by:
1. “There is always something left to love.” -- "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
2. “He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” -- "Love in the Time of Cholera"
3. “The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body and soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.” -- "Memories of My Melancholy Whores"
4. “You can't eat hope,' the woman said. You can't eat it, but it sustains you,' the colonel replied.” -- "El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba"
5. “He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” -- "Love in the Time of Cholera"
6. “It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.” -- "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
7. “They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.” -- "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
8. “Be calm. God awaits you at the door.” -- "Love in the Time of Cholera"
9. “Disbelief is more resistant than faith because it is sustained by the senses.” -- "Of Love and Other Demons"
10. “Humanity, like armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest.” -- "Love in the Time of Cholera"
Here are 10 quotes by Gabriel García Márquez:
11. "Fame is very agreeable, but the bad thing is that it goes on 24 hours a day." -- Gabriel García Márquez
12. "If God hadn't rested on Sunday, he would have time to finish the world." -- Gabriel García Márquez
13. "Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood." -- Gabriel García Márquez
14. "A person doesn't die when he should but when he can." -- Gabriel García Márquez
15. "Necessity has the face of a dog." -- Gabriel García Márquez
16. "People spend a lifetime thinking abouthow they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me, it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'" -- Gabriel García Márquez
17. "Everything that goes into my mouth seems to make me fat, everything that comes out of my mouth embarrasses me." -- Gabriel García Márquez
18. "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him." -- Gabriel García Márquez
19. "The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good." -- Gabriel García Márquez
20. "Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale." -- Gabriel García Márquez
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