We must mistrust utopias: they usually end in holocausts.

It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.

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

The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to be subsidized by the state. It leads to an intellectual and artistic castration.

Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.

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.