I describe my works as books, but my publishers in Spain, in the United States, and elsewhere insist on calling them novels

Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.

It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.

Tobacco is the opiate of the gentleman, the religion of the rich.

I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity

When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader

I read the Odyssey because it was the story of a man who returned home after being absent for more than twenty years and was recognized only by his dog.