A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar.

I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself

I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.

When I write, the first blank page, or any blank page, means nothing to me. What means something is a page that has been filled with words.

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.

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story

But I do not have the reader in mind when I write. No true writer does that