I write 1,000 words a day first thing in the morning but I cannot write 240 characters to describe a piece that I spent six weeks working on with a producer.

Ask any human being alive if they're the same person they were seven years ago and they're going to tell you they aren't.

A novel is like an animal you have to hunt down and kill. If you let it sit for two days, it's got a two-day head start. So, if I just look at it every day, I'm so much better off.

It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.

Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels.

I guess in my own life I don't really think much about manliness too much. I feel like a lot of men that I know don't sit around thinking, "How am I supposed to be a man?" I don't think that I have to prove anything.

For fiction, Im not particularly nationalistic. Im not like the Hugo Chavez of Latin American letters, you know? I want people to read good work.