García Márquez in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2003. Photograph: Andres Reyes/AP
Nobel prize winning author and father of magic realism, Gabriel García Márquez, passed away on Thursday at the age of 87.
His breakthrough novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, was published in 1967. The book has sold 50 million copies in 25 languages. That novel was a revelation to me then, and my respect for him never wavered.
The imaginative power of his writing was stunning, and that otherworldliness of his storytelling has impacted me and my approach to my visual work all these many years. I had to take a moment here to honor and remember this extraordinary man and his work.
Quotes by him are in abundance since his death, but here are a few of my favorites:
It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.
The secret of good old-age is none other than an honest pact with solitude.
But if they had learned anything together it was that wisdom arrives when it’s no longer useful.
What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.
No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.
There is always something left to love.