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.

Violence represents the worst kind of conformism.

There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.

But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space.

Prosperity or egalitarianism -- you have to choose. I favor freedom -- you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.