"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point." (Chapter 1, p. 1).

"Suddenly she reached out her hand and touched him. 'Lordy!' she said, sincerely startled, and that was all she could say. Jose Arcadio felt his bones filling up with foam, a languid fear, and a terrible desire to weep. The woman made no insinuations. But Jose Arcadio kept looking at her all night long, for the smell of smoke that she...