The other day while I was going through some of my old books I came across "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. Leafing through its pages saturated in post-it notes and markings made in different colored pens, I quickly fell back into the story of the Buendía family and of Macondo.

Márquez’ ability to express the most raw, authentic aspects of the human condition through his writing led him to receive many awards, including the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Even though he passed away on April 17, 2014, in honor of what would have been his upcoming birthday on March 6^th, here are 10 of his most beautiful quotes, just a glimpse into why he is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. Enjoy!

1. “And both of them remained floating in an empty universe where the only everyday and eternal reality was love...” –– One Hundred Years of Solitude

2. “He spent six hours examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time.” –– One Hundred Years of Solitude

3. “Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction." –– One Hundred Years of Solitude

4. “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

5. “Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.” –– One Hundred Years of Solitude

6. “Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.” ––Love in the Time of Cholera

7. “Humanity, like armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest.” ––Love in the Time of Cholera

8. “She had never imagined that curiosity was one of the many masks of love .” –– 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. “There is always something left to love.” –– One Hundred Years of Solitude