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.

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

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

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!

The new world economic order is not an exercise in philanthropy, but in enlightened self-interest for everyone concerned.

What America does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is to understand others.

Things have changed in Latin America now. We mostly have democratic governments in Latin America, so the position of the writer has changed. It is not as Neruda used to say, that a Latin American writer walks around with the body of his people on his back. Now, we have citizens, we have public means of expression, political parties, congress, unions. So, the writer's position has changed, we now consider ourselves to be citizens - not spokespeople for everybody - but citizens that participate in the political and social process of the country.