That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.

I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists. I think in the end this kind of activity absorbs one in such a way that it becomes one's way of life.

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.

In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.

I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores.

Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.

We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment, but a way to act.