I read fiction all the time. It's true that I don't like fantasy or science fiction. I like "realistic" novels, particularly those in which nothing much ever happens.

Literature is breathing. I teach literature the way someone else might teach First Aid.

For me the path to the literary goes through the non - literary. For this reason it surprises me that I am a writer, or that people speak of me as a writer. I'm flattered, but I don't quite believe it.

I was born in Cuba but was made in the USA.

When I was younger, I dreaded having to write. I would find every possible excuse not to sit down at the typewriter (this was a long time ago). As I've gotten older, I've learned to enjoy putting sentences together, though I still believe that writing, unlike sex, is always better after you're through.

Every book I think will be my last one because after finishing I have the sense that I've said all I have to say, but I always seem to find a new way of repeating myself.

I say that being a smart writer doesn't make you a good writer. There's obviously a difference between talent and intelligence. And it may be that at some point intelligence begins to impinge on talent, or talent on intelligence.