“Alessandra approached the geniuses of the past to give them life with her attention, which was the form her affection took: paying attention.”

“There is no creation without tradition; the 'new' is an inflection on a preceding form; novelty is always a variation on the past.”

“I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public, I’m looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.”

“She begins to feel that the reality show is the university she never attended. Vicarious reality. Emotion without a value-added tax. Movement without danger. Alma finds her reality. She no longer has a reason to put herself at risk and go out into the hostile, degrading world.”

“I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society.”

“And don't give me the same old story:"We're in Mexico. Pray."You'd be better off taking a snake rattle.”

“Because it’s a fucking disaster to be creative when you know you’re not Mozart or Keats. Dammit, I got tired of scratching around in my past. There’s nothing in me to justify the pretension of creativity. This came before anything, before you, before Raquel, this is a matter of my own emptiness, my awareness of my own limits, maybe my sterility. Does what I’m saying to you seem awful? Now you want to come along and sell me an illusion, which I don’t believe in but which does make me believe that either you’re a fool or you underestimate my intelligence. Why don’t you just leave me alone, so I can fill the emptiness in my own way? Let me see things for myself, learn if something can still grow in my soul, an idea, a faith, because I swear to you, Laura, my soul is more desolate than this rock landscape you see here… why?”