“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.”

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

“a story is a letter the author writes to himself to tell what he wouldn't discover otherwise.”

“Write," he said."I'll write to you as soon as I get there," answered Julian."No. Not to me. Write books. Not letters. Write them for me, for Penelope.”

“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.”

“[H]e lay awake, dreading the dawn when he would have to say good-bye to the small universe he had built for himself over the years.”

“His soul is in his stories. I once asked him who inspired him to create his characters, and his answer was no one. That all his characters were himself.”