The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.

Salt and the center of the world have to be there, in that spot on the tablecloth.

Time is born in the eyes, everybody knows that.

What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I’ve seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think it’s just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn’t picked out, Juliet wasn’t picked out. You don’t pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert.

What good is a writer if he can't destroy literature? And us... what good are we if we don't help as much as we can in that destruction?

The fantastic breaks the crust of appearance … something grabs us by the shoulders to throw us outside ourselves. I have always known that the big surprises await us where we have learned to be surprised by nothing, that is, where we are not shocked by ruptures in the order.

The unusual is only found in a very small percentage, except in literary creations, and that is exactly what makes literature.