sneaky peek.

Posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse mirentur

INTERVIEWER How did you start writing? GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ By drawing. By drawing cartoons. Before I could read or write I used to draw comics at school and at home. The funny thing is that I now realize that when I was in high school I had the reputation of being a writer, though I never in fact wrote anything. If there was a pamphlet to be written or a letter of petition, I was the one to do it because I was supposedly the writer.At the university in Bogotá, I started making new friends and acquaintances, who introduced me to contemporary writers. One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago.

Langzaam wandelde Pnin onder de plechtige dennen. De hemel was bezig te sterven. Hij geloofde niet in een oppermachtige God. Hij geloofde wel, vagelijk, in een democratie van geesten. Misschien vormden de zielen van de doden comités en hielden deze zich, continu in zitting, bezig met het lot van de levenden.

De schoonheid van taal is niet bij machte de gemiste kansen en opgelopen wonden werkelijk te bedekken of te genezen, hetgeen treurig is voor het leven, maar een zegen voor de literatuur.

I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.