We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.

A novelist is a man who doesn't like his mother.

The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world

For 30 years I have tried to make it understood that there are no criminals.

I write fast, because I have not the brains to write slow.

I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.

If your vision of the world is of a certain kind you will put poetry in everything, necessarily.