“A good friend once told me that the problems are like cockroaches. If drawn to light, they'll get scared.”

“Julian had once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

“I bent over her and kissed her lips. She embraced me, and we remained like that as the light from the candle sputtered then went out.”

“To Senor Sempere, the best friend a book could ever have: you opened the doors to the world for me and showed me how to go through them.”

“All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake.”

“Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.”

“Don't you feel like a little glass of rum? It's Cuban, like all the good stuff that kills you.”