My parents were founders of the Cuban Communist Party, and I grew up extremely poor. Guillermo Cabrera Infante More Quotes by Guillermo Cabrera Infante More Quotes From Guillermo Cabrera Infante I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread Guillermo Cabrera Infante bedtimefrightenedthinking 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. Guillermo Cabrera Infante literaturewritingmean I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city. Guillermo Cabrera Infante citieswritingthinking 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. Guillermo Cabrera Infante cuban-cigarsleisureworld If the sleep of reason produces monsters, what does the sleep of unreason produce? Guillermo Cabrera Infante doemonsterssleep 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 Guillermo Cabrera Infante powerfulreadingbelieve Writing for me, even what you call serious writing, is play. Guillermo Cabrera Infante seriousplaywriting A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar. Guillermo Cabrera Infante good-lovecigarlovers When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader Guillermo Cabrera Infante literaturewritingneeds 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 Guillermo Cabrera Infante heartbelievemoving 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. Guillermo Cabrera Infante doghomefriendship No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking. Guillermo Cabrera Infante jigsaw-puzzlesliteraturewriting I am a writer of fragments. Guillermo Cabrera Infante fragments I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips Guillermo Cabrera Infante alaskaavidboys The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters. Guillermo Cabrera Infante peculiarliteraturecharacter I think all writing is done through memory Guillermo Cabrera Infante writingmemoriesthinking 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 Guillermo Cabrera Infante literaturecountrythinking 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. Guillermo Cabrera Infante literaturewritingmean 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. Guillermo Cabrera Infante catholicliteraturewriting That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all. Guillermo Cabrera Infante lastswritingcharacter
