Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are.

Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.

My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.

The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn't show up invited, eventually she just shows up.

At times I felt that the universe fabricated from the power of the imagination had stronger and more lasting contours than the blurred realm of the flesh-and-blood creatures around me.

I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.

my husband, who is a lawyer, is very careful with words and with the truth. He thinks that the truth exists, and it's something that is beyond questioning, which I think is totally absurd. I have several versions of how we met and how wonderful he was and all that. At least twenty. And I'm sure that they are all true. He has one. And I'm positive that it's not true.