Religion is dogmatic. Politic is ideological. Reason must be logical, but literature has a privilege of being equivocal.

Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.

There are people whose external reality is generous because it is transparent, because you can read everything, accept everything, understand everything about them: people who carry their own sun with them.

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.

I have never considered myself a writer in exile because I grew up outside of my own country, because my father was a diplomat. Therefore, I grew up in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, the United States, I studied in Switzerland - so I've always had perspective on my country - I am thankful for that.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

In a world torn by every kind of fundamentalism - religious, ethnic, nationalist and tribal - we must grant first place to economic fundamentalism, with its religious conviction that the market, left to its own devices, is capable of resolving all our problems. This faith has its own ayatollahs. Its church is neo-liberalism; its creed is profit; its prayers are for monopolies.