What will die with me the day I die? What pathetic or frail image will be lost to the world? The voice of Macedonio Fernandez, the image of a bay horse in a vacant lot on the corner of Sarrano and Charcas, a bar of sulfur in the drawer of a mahogany desk?

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy.

I'm not interested in the fact that a writer may label himself as being intellectual or anti-intellectual. l'm really interested in the stuff he's turning out.

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

Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.

I know that when I think of myself as being utterly worn out, when I think that somehow I have nothing more to write, then something is happening within me. And, in due course, it bubbles up; it comes to the surface, and then I do my best to listen. But there's nothing mystical about all this. I suppose all writers do the same.