Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice…

Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.

She had that rare virtue of never existing completely except for that opportune moment.

The woman let out an expansive laugh that resounded through the house like a spray of broken glass.