85 Inspirational Gabriel García Márquez Quotes [2024]

Updated: January 20th, 2022

Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. He was popularly known as Gabo or Gabito.

He was best known for his novels such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) He was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

We've put together an incredible collection of Gabriel García Márquez quotes to read.

Here they are:

85 Inspirational Gabriel García Márquez Quotes [2024]

List of Inspiring Gabriel García Márquez Quotes

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” - Gabriel García Márquez


“A lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Do not allow me to forget you” - Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons


“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” - Gabriel García Márquez


“A true friend is the one who holds your hand and touches your heart” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Cease, cows, life is short.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude


“Only God knows how much I love you.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


"She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"The woman let out an expansive laugh that resounded through the house like a spray of broken glass." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Necessity has the face of a dog." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


“There is always something left to love.” - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude


“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


“Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel." - Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores


“Never stop smiling not even when you're sad, someone might fall in love with your smile.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.” - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude


“Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.” - Gabriel García Márquez


“No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you've already had.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores


"Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but ... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” - Gabriel García Márquez


"Life is the best thing that has ever been invented." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Fame is very agreeable, but the bad thing is that it goes on 24 hours a day." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Be calm. God awaits you at the door.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


"If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Until I discovered the miracle that all things that sound are music, including dishes and silverware in the dishwasher, as long as they fulfill the illusion of showing us where life is heading." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Even when the winds of misfortune blow, amazing things can still happen." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment." - Gabriel García Marquez


“They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.” - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude


"Tricks you need to transform something which appears fantastic, unbelievable into something plausible, credible, those I learned from journalism. The key is to tell it straight. It is done by reporters and by country folk.“They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.” - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"I would give wings to children, but I would leave it to them to learn how to fly by themselves." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"The spirit of her invincible heart guided her through the shadows." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Always tell what you feel. Do what you think." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“She had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love .” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


"I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Puppet


"If you love something - let. If it is yours - it will come back. I love you not because of who you are, but for who I am when I'm with you." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"When one reaches absolute power, one loses total contact with reality." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Become a better person and be sure to know who you are, before meeting someone new and hoping that person knows who you are." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Your first realization when you become an important person is that all day and all night, whatever the circumstances, people want to hear you talk about yourself." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons


"The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Don't struggle so much, the best things happen when not expected." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Today, when I saw you, I realized that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Inspiration gives no warnings." - Gabriel García Marquez


"It is a triumph of life that old people lose their memories of inessential things." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Music is important for one's health." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Unfortunately many young writers are more concerned with fame than with their own work... It's much more important to write than to be written about." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Freedom is often the first casualty of war." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Be calm. God awaits you at the door." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones... After all, there are better ways to starve to death." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she’ll be sorry if she isn’t guided by her heart." - Gabriel García Marquez


"She was lost in her longing to understand." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"You can't eat hope,' the woman said. You can't eat it, but it sustains you,' the colonel replied.” - Gabriel García Márquez; Morino, Angelo (translator), El coronel no tiene quien le escriba"


"What is essential, therefore, is not that you no longer believe, but that God continues to believe in you." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"For those who may be hurting over lost love: Don't cry because it is over... smile because it happened." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Humanity, like armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“One can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the sorrow with each, and not betray any of them.” - Gabriel García Márquez


“Morality, too, is a question of time.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores


"Hate and love are reciprocal passions." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"The truth is that the first changes are so slow they pass almost unnoticed, and you go on seeing yourself as you always were, from the inside, but others observe you from the outside." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“There [is] no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age.” - Gabriel García Márquez


“My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.” - Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez


"Nobody teaches life anything." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“One could be happy not only without love but despite it.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


"Life is but a continual succession of opportunities for surviving." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Justice limps along, but gets there all the same.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“It is easier to start a war than to end it.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist?" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“Those who wanted to sleep, not from fatigue but because of the nostalgia of dreams...” - Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez


"Jealousy knows more than truth does." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


“The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name.” - Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera


“A falcon who chases a warlike crane can only hope for a life of pain.” - Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold


"The first of the line is tied to a tree and the last is being eaten by the ants." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Fame invades your private life. It takes away from the time that you spend with friends and the time that you can work. It tends to isolate you from the real world." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"The world is divided into those who screw and those who do not. He distrusted those who did not—when they strayed from the straight and narrow it was something so unusual for them that they bragged about love as if they had just invented it." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had provided for him, and he was responsible to it." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Shame has a poor memory." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


"Give me a prejudice and I will move the world." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez


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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.