I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.

Literature is a form of permanent insurrection. Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant state of dissatisfaction with themselves.

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)

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.

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 writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.

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