At the end of the 1950s, I started working at a publishing company, Estudios Cor, as production manager, so returning, but not as an author, to the world of letters I had left some years before.

Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.

The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better.

Things will be very bad for Latin America. You only have to consider the ambitions and the doctrines of the empire, which regards this region as its backyard.

Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you've never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn't frighten you...my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside

Jeronimo, my grandfather, swine-herder and story-teller, feeling death about to arrive and take him, went and said goodbye to the trees in the yard, one by one, embracing them and crying because he knew he wouldn't see them again. To truly appreciate life we must remember that nothing lasts for ever and take nothing we enjoy for granted. In so doing we stay grateful and happy for all our good fortune.

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.