- "You will be called upon to account for all the
permitted pleasures in life you did not enjoy while on earth." --
the Koran
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- Nobel-prize winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez
retired from public life last November due to worsening cancer of the lymph
nodes. He has sent this farewell letter to his friends, which has been
translated, posted on the Internet, and sent by Jeff Hutner:
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- If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll
and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn't say all that I
think, but rather I would think of all that I say. I would value things,
not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream
more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty
seconds of light.
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- I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when
others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a
good chocolate ice cream! If God were to give me a piece of life, I would
dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my
body but also my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate
on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with
a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade
I'd offer to the moon. With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain
of their thorns, and the red kiss of their petals...
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- My god, if I had a piece of life... I wouldn't let a
single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them. I would
convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would
live in love with love. I would show men how very wrong they are to think
that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they
grow old when they cease to be in love! To a child I shall give wings,
but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that
death does not come with old age, but with forgetting. So much have I learned
from you, oh men...
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- I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak
of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.
I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with
his tiny fist his father's finger, he has him trapped forever. 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. From you I have learned so many things, but
in truth they won't be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase,
unhappily shall I be dying.
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- "Life can't give me joy and peace; it's up to me
to will it. Life just gives me time and space; it's up to me to fill it."
-- William James, psychologist
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