Culture consists of connections, not of separations: to specialize is to isolate. Carlos Fuentes More Quotes by Carlos Fuentes More Quotes From Carlos Fuentes The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century. Carlos Fuentes united-states latin america Cuba needs a dose of perestroika. Carlos Fuentes dose cuba needs The citizen takes his city for granted far too often. He forgets to marvel. Carlos Fuentes citizens cities forget I had the good fortune of having a happy, closely knit family. Carlos Fuentes good-fortune fortune I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature. Carlos Fuentes ends literature animal I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist. Carlos Fuentes writing littles needs I am not interested in slice of life, what I want is a slice of the imagination. Carlos Fuentes not-interested imagination want I have no literary fears. Carlos Fuentes I like fighting. I get into rows all the time. Carlos Fuentes fighting I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down. Carlos Fuentes writing book In the name of certainty, the greatest crimes have been committed against humanity. Carlos Fuentes crime humanity names At 50 I find there is a long line of characters and shapes demanding words just outside my window. Carlos Fuentes shapes character long My system for staying young is to work a lot, to always have a project on the go. Carlos Fuentes staying-young projects young I've lost audiences, I've recovered them. Carlos Fuentes audience lost Some writers achieve great popularity and then disappear forever. The bestseller lists of the past fifty years are, with a few lively exceptions, a sombre graveyard of dead books. Carlos Fuentes book past years No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that. Carlos Fuentes our-society deceiving want The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from whence no one can be expelled because, in a novel, no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be heard and understood. Carlos Fuentes games character civilization For me, life without literature is inconceivable. I think that Don Quixote in a physical sense never existed, but Don Quixote exists more than anybody who existed in 1605. Much more. There's nobody who can compete with Don Quixote or with Hamlet. So in the end we have the reality of the book as the reality of the world and the reality of history. Carlos Fuentes book reality thinking I’ve been thrashed by the critics. I love having critics for breakfast. I’ve been having them for 30 years in Mexico - just eating them like chicken and then throwing the bones away. They have not survived, I have! Carlos Fuentes critics breakfast Children know how to be cruel, and the cruelty of their elders is the surest residue of the malaise the young feel toward things strange, things other, things that reveal our own ignorance or insufficiency Carlos Fuentes strange ignorance children
