Shouldn't it have been 'for'?

[Miss Mae]

It was one of my favorite quotes in high school. I didn't know then that it was penned by a Nobel Prize laureate. Is there a possibility that 'for' should have been the conjunction instead?

“Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

[Joe Carillo]

Can the coordinating conjunction “for” be used instead of “but” in the sentence below?

“Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

No, I don’t think so. The sense of “but” is “however” or that of opposition to the idea in the first coordinate clause “nobody deserves your tears,” as in the following alternative construction:

“Nobody deserves your tears; however, whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”
 
In contrast, the sense of “for” is “because,” or an explanation supporting the statement “nobody deserves your tears,” as in the following alternative construction:

“Nobody deserves your tears because whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

We can see that the sentence above is nonsensical because it’s self-contradictory.

By the way, I checked out that quote and found that it’s consistently attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. That’s odd because I used to be an inveterate fan of him, reading most of his novels and short-story collections (“How I Discovered Gabriel Garcia Marquez,” Chapter 40 of Section 7 of my book English Plain and Simple), but I have no recollection of coming across that sentiment of his in any of his works. 

Can anybody from among the Forum members tell me from where that Marquez quote was taken? I’ll greatly appreciate it.

[Miss Mae]

It was sent to me through a text message yesterday. When I learned about it in high school, it didn't occur to me to check it thinking it was just another hayskul quote.

Anyway, I should've thought why GGM had preferred the conjunction used there. Thank you.

[Miss Mae]

But...

Would it have made a difference if the conjunction used was enclosed with a pair of commas? It really sounded awkward to me.

“Nobody deserves your tears, but, whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

[Joe Carillo]

Formally, when a coordinating conjunction is used in a compound sentence, there should be a comma right before the coordinating conjunction, although that comma has become optional in modern usage. There's absolutely no need for a comma after the coordinating conjunction, though. That sentence can therefore be alternatively structured as follows:

“Nobody deserves your tears but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

but never this way as you suggested:

“Nobody deserves your tears, but, whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

However, when we use a conjunctive adverb instead of a coordinating conjunction to link the second coordinate clause, that second comma becomes mandatory in tandem with the semicolon right before the conjunctive adverb:

“Nobody deserves your tears; however, whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”

[Miss Mae]

I think I was taken aback because it also didn't occur to me that GGM would write that. But then, my friend who sent that to me is such a bookworm I couldn't not believe him.

What I learned in high school was a paraphrase of that quote, too. It read: No man is worth crying because if he is worth crying, he wouldn't make you cry.