Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man's traditional mistrust of the man who is not part of his tribe, that 'other' who speaks a different language, whose skin is a different color, and who participates in mysterious rites and rituals.

Since it is impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent, dream and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary.

A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

Violence represents the worst kind of conformism.

The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies.