At dawn, worn out by the tormented vigil, he appeared in the cell an hour before the execution. "The farce is over, old friend," he said to Colonel Gerineldo Marquez. "Let's get out of here before the mosquitos in here execute you." Colonel Gerineldo Marquez could not express the disdain that was inspired in him by that attitude.
"No, Aureliano," he replied. "I'd rather be dead than see you changed into a tyrant."
"You won't see me," Colonel Aureliano Buendía said. "Put your shoes and help me get this shitty war over with."
When he said it he did not know that it was easier to start a war than to end one.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)