“Cease, cows, life is short.”

“Ceasing to believe caused a permanent scar in the place where one's faith had been, making it impossible to forget.”

“Science has eliminated distance,” Melquíades proclaimed. “In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his own house.”

“One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.”

“The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”

“Nobody teaches life anything.”

“It is life, more than death, that has no limits.”