I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it.

I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me

The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.

Writers rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread

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.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself

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