"If I knew that today would be the last time I'd see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I'd embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I'd take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I see you, I'd tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already."

- Gabriel García Márquez

The Nobel Prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, most known for his incredibly influential One Hundred Years of Solitude, which Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called "the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since the Don Quixote of Cervantes," has died at his home in Mexico City. He was 87.

He leaves behind his native Colombia, his beloved residence of Mexico, the U.S. who was intrigued by him, as well as his admirers across the globe in mourning.

The Colombian intellectual, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, died Thursday, April 17. He was reportedly treated in April for infections and dehydration at a Mexican hospital. In 1999, he learned that he had lymphatic cancer and, according to his brother, in 2012 he developed senile dementia, The New York Times reports.

Márquez was a master of "magical realism," an intoxicating and cohesive blend of fantasy and reality that he said "sprang from Latin America's history of vicious dictators and romantic revolutionaries, of long years of hunger, illness and violence."

In a televised speech Thursday night, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos declared three days of national mourning, ordering flags to be lowered to half-staff across the country, according to CNN.

Praised by the literary world, Márquez, who was given the moniker "Gabo" throughout Latin America, was born in the northern Colombian town of Aracataca, which reportedly "became the inspiration for Macondo, the town at the center of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' his 1967 masterpiece, and was referenced in his novella 'Leaf Storm' and his novel 'In Evil Hour.'"

His 1985 novel Love in the Time of Cholera, which has been translated into many languages, is considered Márquez's "most romantic novel." It tells "the story of the resumption of a passionate relationship between a recently widowed septuagenarian and the lover she had broken with more than 50 years before."

While Márquez left his native Colombia for Europe (and then later Mexico) after he wrote a controversial piece that upset the Colombian government, he never forgot the love for 'su patria.'

"I feel Latin American from whatever country, but I have never renounced the nostalgia of my homeland: Aracataca, to which I returned one day and discovered that between reality and nostalgia was the raw material for my work," reads a mural quoting the author outside of town, CNN adds.

In his novels, he also drew upon a tumultuous time in Colombia's history during the late 1940s and early 1950s called La Violencia, a civil war that ensued after the assassination of a populist leader where 300,000 Colombians were killed.  

He grew up with his maternal grandparents because his father was "a postal clerk, telegraph operator and itinerant pharmacist, could barely support his wife and 12 children." His grandfather was a colonel retired from the civil war. Both grandparents had a fascinating way of storytelling, which greatly influenced Márquez's writing.

Márquez moved to Colombian's capital, Bogotá, to study law, but he was drawn to his true love of journalism. In 1954 he was sent to Rome on an assignment for his newspaper, and after that, he mostly lived abroad in Paris, New York, Barcelona and Mexico.

Also known for his left-wing politics, Márquez had strong ties with Cuba's Fidel Castro, which didn't sit well with many, however, when it came to his work, he was praised as a pioneer of his time. 

Márquez is survived by his wife, Mercedes, and his two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. He will undoubtedly be missed by many. 

"I was saddened to learn of the passing of Gabriel García Márquez," said former President Bill Clinton in a statement. "From the time I read 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' more than 40 years ago, I was always amazed by his unique gifts of imagination, clarity of thought, and emotional honesty. He captured the pain and joy of our common humanity in settings both real and magical."