More Gabo: "''The truth of my soul was that the drama of Colombia reached me like a remote echo and moved me only when it spilled over into rivers of blood. I would light a cigarette without finishing the one before, I would breathe in the smoke with the longing for life seen in asthmatics gulping down air, and the three packs I consumed each day were evident on my nails and in an old dog's cough that disrupted my youth. In short, I was shy and sad, like a good Caribbean, and so jealous of my intimate life that I would answer any question about it with a rhetorical digression. I was convinced my bad luck was congenital and irremediable, above all with women and with money, but I did not care, because I believed I did not need good luck to write well. I did not care about glory, or money or old age, because I was sure I was going to die very young, and in the street.''"