Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space...
Ni en la guerra debe haber muertos inutiles. Usted me entiende, vaya al colegio y trate en el futuro de que la muerte del cadete Arana sirve para algo.
Es verdad que es imposible conocer a fondo a las personas, todas son insondables.
Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.
Reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.
In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It’s something that gives me what real life can’t give me – all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.
Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.
You cannot teach creativity – how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.
The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.
Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it.
Literature is a form of permanent insurrection. Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant state of dissatisfaction with themselves.
No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.
We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it’s not just a very sophisticated entertainment, but a way to act.
One can’t fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.
There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.