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

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

You can survive with anger, but you can't live with it forever.

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

This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.

Mining created Chile. The story of men who go down into the mountain and chip away at minerals in the darkness and then suffer an accident that leaves them at the mercy of that darkness is part of the DNA of Chile, an integral part of the country's history.

Beware of turning into the enemy you most fear. All it takes is to lash out violently at someone who has done you some grievous harm, proclaiming that only your pain matters in this world. More than against that person's body, you will then, at that moment, be committing a crime against your own imagination.