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 am a Mexican. The United States lived seventy-five years with the one party system in Mexico - the PRI - without batting an eyelid, never demanding democracy of Mexico. Democracy came because Mexicans fought for democracy and made a democracy out of our history, our possibilities, our perspectives. Democracy is not something that can be exported like Coca-Cola. It has to be bred from the inside, according to the culture, the conditions of each country.

I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society.

The possibility of being as free with the camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.

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

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.

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.