The most elementary of good manners . . . at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.

No one who loves life can ignore literature, and no one who loves literature can ignore life.

[...] each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves

It was very pleasant to savor its aroma, for smells have the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present. -Tita

Keeping secrets will always lead to unhappiness and communication is the key to love.

"Only the pots know the boiling points of the broths," she says as Tita weeps into the wedding batter she is making to celebrate the marriage of her sister to her own true love.

You don't have to think about love; you either feel it or you don't.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self understanding and this is something that can't be taught.

Words travel as swiftly as desire, so it is possible to send a message of love without them.

Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more like dry labor.

To the table or to bed, you must come when you are bid.

I want you to be happy and for me to be part of that happiness.

All tastes are expressions of belief.

Peace… starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.

It is better that we live ever so Miserably than die in glory.

Business today is about making decisions amid ambiguity.

Crosses and gallows - that deadly historic juxtaposition.

Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them.

My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.

I stood on the balcony dark with mourning... hoping the earth would spread its wings in my uninhabited love.

I was called a misogynist because I was reducing women to mothers. 'Reducing women to mothers' – now there is possibly the most anti-women statement I've heard.