There's a tendency, especially among revolutionaries, to only show the good side of yourself and then when you come to power, the bad side comes out.

Those who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.

I'm a mongrel in the sense that I'm Spanish, English, Latino, Jewish, north, south - all these things are mixed in me.

Most writers who leave their country physically have already left it mentally and emotionally.

There's a tendency, especially among revolutionaries, to only show the good side of yourself and then when you come to power, the bad side comes out.

I feel as if I can take Indian stories, make them mine and take them to the world.

You want to free the world, free humanity, from oppression? Look inside, look sideways, look at the hidden violence of language. Never forget that language is where the other, parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates.