“Like my maestro, Juan Ribero, she believed that photography and painting are not competing arts but basically different: the painter interpets reality, and the camera captures it. In the former everything is fiction, while the second is the sum of the real plus the sensibility of the photographer. Ribero never allowed me sentimental or exhibitionist tricks-none of this arranging objects or models to look like paintings. He was the enemy of artificial compostion; he did not let me manipulate negatives or prints, and in general he scorned effects of spots or diffuse lighting: he wanted the honest and simple image, although clear in the most minute details.”

“If what you want is the effect of painting, then paint, Aurora. If what you want is truth, learn to use your camera," he would say again and again”

“His lifetime was less than a fraction of a second in infinity. Or maybe he did not even exist; maybe human beings, the planets, everything in Creation were a dream...an illusion. He smiled with humility when he remembered...”

“This is the kind of detail that is forbidden in literature; in a book, no one would dare combine a full moon with Frank Sinatra. The problem with fiction is that it must seem credible, while reality seldom is.”

“He had only to touch me to turn my tears into sighs and my anger to desire. How accomodating love is; it forgives everything.”

“She intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality.”

“Do you truly believe that life is fair, Senor de la Vega?-No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.”