Manuel Puig Quotes

I locate that special problem in a character and then try to understand it. That's the genesis of all my work.

It's my own personal unconscious that ultimately creates the novel's aesthetic facade.

Hitchcock makes it very clear to us. There's an objective and a subjective camera, like there's a third- and a first-person narrator in literature.

Tardiness in literature can make me nervous.

Kafka truly illustrates the way the environment oppresses the individual. He shows how the unconscious controls our lives.

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

I don't think humor is forced upon my universe; it's a part of it.

I believe in characters as vehicles of exposition. Their voices are full of hidden clues, and I like to listen to them.

Teaching is a good distraction, and I am in contact with young people, which is very gratifying.

I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.

I allow my intuition to lead my path.

It doesn't matter that the way of life shown by Hollywood was phony. It helped you hope.

I write novels because there is something I don't understand in reality.

I've always wondered why there isn't a great French novel about the German occupation. The nouveau roman authors weren't interested in telling that sort of thing.

The essayist has to follow a certain intellectual pattern. The novelist has the advantage of using fantasy, of being subjective.

Whenever I write, I'm always thinking of the reader.

I am very interested in what has been called bad taste. I believe the fear of displaying a soi-disant bad taste stops us from venturing into special cultural zones.