Cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, Cigars are for eternity.

I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread

My parents were founders of the Cuban Communist Party, and I grew up extremely poor.

For me, literature is a complex game, both mental and concrete, which is acted out in a physical manner on the page.

I was able to read a movie before I was able to read a book

You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that

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