My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.

Time can't be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different.

I live in a grey world, rather like the silver screen world. But yellow stands out.

In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of others.

What a writer wants to do is not what he does.

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes.