The rules of life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The famous Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the author of such famous works as "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "Autumn of the Patriarch" and "No one writes to the Colonel". Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

In memory of the great writer, we present to your attention his rules of life.

1. I've always wanted to write soap operas. For people like me, who only want to be loved for what they do, a soap opera is much more effective than a novel.

2. We have to deal with the petrification of language. Words like "people" and "democracy" have lost their meaning. Anyone who can organize elections considers himself a Democrat.

3. I tried to write fairy tales, but nothing came out. I showed one of them to my sons, then still young. They returned her with the words: "Dad, do you think kids are really stupid?"

4. I try to prevent unpleasant surprises. I prefer stairs to escalators. Anything — planes.

5. The United States invests a lot of money in Latin America, but they failed to do what we did without a single cent. We change their language, their music, their food, their love, their way of thinking. We influence The United States in the way they would like to influence us.

6. AIDS only adds to the risk of love. Love has always been very dangerous. It is a deadly disease in itself.

7. Prostitutes were my friends when I was young. I went to them not so much to make love, but to get rid of loneliness. I always said I got married so I wouldn't have to have breakfast alone. Of course, Mercedes (wife — Esquire) says I'm a son of a bitch.

8. I had a wife and two young sons. I worked as a PR manager and edited screenplays. But to write a book, you had to give up work. I pawned the car and gave the money to Mercedes. Every day she somehow got me paper, cigarettes, everything I needed at work. When the book was finished, it turned out that we owed the butcher 5,000 pesos — a lot of money. There was a rumor around that I was writing a very important book, and all the shopkeepers wanted to participate. To send the text to the publisher, 160 pesos were needed, and only 80 remained. Then I put a mixer and a Mercedes hair dryer. When she found out about it, she said: "It was not enough that the novel turned out to be bad."

9. If a woman is involved in something, I know that everything will be fine. It is quite clear to me that women rule the world.

10. The only thing women don't forgive is betrayal. If you immediately set the rules of the game, whatever they are, women usually accept them. But they do not tolerate when the rules change during the game. In such cases, they become ruthless.

11. I had an argument with the professors of literature in Cuba. They said: One Hundred Years of Solitude is an extraordinary book, but it does not offer a solution." For me, this is a dogma. My books describe situations, they should not offer solutions.

12. I am a petty-bourgeois writer, and my point of view has always been petty-bourgeois. This is my level, my perspective.

13. If I didn't become a writer, I would like to be a taper in a bar. So I would help lovers to love each other even more.

14. My task is to be loved, that's why I write. I am very afraid that there is someone who does not love me, and I want him to love me because of this interview.

15. Great calamities have always produced great abundance. They make people want to live.