“Among other things, my own experience has led me to believe that American naivete can sometimes be more than it seems; it can hide something we Europeans can't or don't want to understand.”

“What twisted people we are. How simple we seem, or at least pretend to be in front of others, and how twisted we are deep down. How paltry we are and how spectacularly we contort ourselves before our own eyes, and the eyes of others...And all for what? To hide what? To make people believe what?”

“We're artists too, but we do a good job hiding it, don't we?”

“I suppose all the movies I've seen will be worth nothing to me when I die. Wrong. They'll be worth something, believe me. Don't stop going to the movies.”

“In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats”

“I think of all those who believed in a Latin American paradise and died in a Latin American hell.”

“We play at believing ourselves imortal. We delude oursleves in the appraisal of our own works and in our perpetual misappraisal of the works of others. See you at the Nobel, writers say, as one might say: see you in hell.”