The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.

It's not so much staying alive, it's staying human that's important. What counts is that we don't betray each other.

I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain!

The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else,and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.

For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity.

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside