You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

Migration is an opportunity, not a problem. And in the sense that it is an opportunity, it goes on to a bilateral agreement, between Mexico and the US, the US and the Dominican Republic, whatever you wish, and it has to be a multilateral, international event. I am in favor of an international union of migrant workers that really takes on the problems that affect Europe, with the migrants coming from Africa, and the US with the migrants coming from Latin America. It has to be considered an international question, with international solutions, and with no problems national or international.

The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from whence no one can be expelled because, in a novel, no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be heard and understood.

I’ve been thrashed by the critics. I love having critics for breakfast. I’ve been having them for 30 years in Mexico - just eating them like chicken and then throwing the bones away. They have not survived, I have!

There is no creation without tradition; the 'new' is an inflection on a preceding form; novelty is always a variation on the past.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.