I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations--a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return.

Write," he said. "I'll write to you as soon as I get there," answered Julian. "No. Not to me. Write books. Not letters. Write them for me, for Penelope.

A good friend once told me that the problems are like cockroaches. If drawn to light, they'll get scared.

A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.

Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.

In fact I don't think of literature, or music, or any art form as having a nationality. Where you're born is simply an accident of fate. I don't see why I shouldn't be more interested in say, Dickens, than in an author from Barcelona simply because I wasn't born in the UK. I do not have an ethno-centric view of things, much less of literature. Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

It's curious how easy it is to tell a piece of paper what you don't dare say to someone's face.