I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread
When I write, the first blank page, or any blank page, means nothing to me. What means something is a page that has been filled with words.
Cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, Cigars are for eternity.
If the sleep of reason produces monsters, what does the sleep of unreason produce?
A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar.
I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity
What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other
When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader
I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.
I think all writing is done through memory
I read the Odyssey because it was the story of a man who returned home after being absent for more than twenty years and was recognized only by his dog.
No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.
I am a writer of fragments.
It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.
Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.
Puns are a form of humor with words.
Tobacco is the opiate of the gentleman, the religion of the rich.
I first came out against Castro in June 1968, fifteen months after my book had been published, and you cannot imagine how quickly a void was created around me
I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips
The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.
I left my country because I was forced to, and I do not think that I am going to lose my language because I live in England
Writers rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread
I do not consider myself a Hispanic writer.
I know that many writers have had to write under censorship and yet produced good novels; for instance, Cervantes wrote Don Quixote under Catholic censorship.
I was never a true journalist, I was a movie critic.
