I lived there, and of course, when I'd get up next day, the only other people still around were the prostitutes. We were good friends, and we'd make breakfasts that I'll never forget. They'd lend me soap. I remember that I'd always run out of soap and they'd lend it to me. And that's where I finished writing Leaf Storm.
I would have liked for my books to have been recognized posthumously, at least in capitalist countries, where you turn into a kind of merchandise.
It's not that the book is coded, what's coded is the events that serve as its foundation, just as some of the events in One Hundred Years of Solitude are. The rest is experiences I've had. When my mother reads the book she's wonderful, because she goes through it saying, "This is such-and-such, this is that, that's my buddy, the one people said was queer but really wasn't."
I'm not sure whether I had already read Faulkner or not, but I know now that only a technique like Faulkner's could have enabled me to write down what I was seeing. The atmosphere, the decadence, the heat in the village were roughly the same as what I had felt in Faulkner.
It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.
I don't think you can write a book that's worth anything without extraordinary discipline.
The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.
I've always been convinced that my true profession is that of a journalist.
He is ugly and sad, but he is all love.
But then I realized that life itself is the greatest source of inspiration and that dreams are only a very small part of that torrent that is life.