I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists. I think in the end this kind of activity absorbs one in such a way that it becomes one's way of life.
I think in a country like mine, violence is at the root of all human relations.
I don't accept the idea that literature can be just entertainment and that there is no consequences of literature in the real world.
Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden?
North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.
Even though what I enjoy most is literature, I would not want to live only in a world of fiction, cut off from the rest of life. No - I want to always have a foot in the street, to be inmersed in the activities of my contemporaries, in the times, in the place where I live.
Reading was such an enrichment of my life. And it was that pleasure that I had as a very young reader probably that is the origin of my vocation.
Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.
In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.
I couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature.
The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.
Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.
I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.
The foundations of liberty are private property and the rule of law; this system guarantees the fewest possible forms of injustice, produces the greatest material and cultural progress, most effectively stems violence and provides the greatest respect for human rights. According to this concept of liberalism, freedom is a single, unified concept. Political and economic liberties are as inseparable as the two sides of a medal.
Liberty is inseparable from social justice, and those who dissociate them, sacrificing the first with the purpose of attaining the second more quickly, are the true barbarians of our time.
