We used to send whole flocks of birds shooting out of our mouths and never managed to grab them by their wings.

My mother did what many men do. She left.

You think you know everything about a person, but the truth often comes as a surprise.

Certainly, I know what it's like to be obsessed. I haven't always been there for my children. They could reach me, but I wasn't always there. But, you know, that's not necessarily anything to do with being a writer. I mean, a taxi driver could have the same problem... Maybe.

Our exile organizations have been our way of replacing the cities and villages we have lost.

I can still remember the miraculous feeling of writing a sentence, then more sentences, telling a story. The first thing I wrote was a one-page summary of Robinson Crusoe and I am so sorry I do not have it any more; it was at that moment I became an author.

I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world.