Now the long-feared Asiatic colossus takes its turn as world leader, and we--the white race--have become the yellow man's burden.Let us hope that he will treat us more kindly than we treated him.

There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

The Americans only like things they can label, even if it kills them. Think of those poor Latin American writers. Some of them are very good. But the "magical realism" label has absolutely ruined them. The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out.

Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.

You can't be both a writer and a politician, at least not a good writer. A writer must always tell the truth as he sees it. And the politician must never give the game away.

It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later.

When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?'