Novelist

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.

Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.

Writing requires the concentration of the writer, demands that nothing else be done except that.

The historical problem of the United States is to admit that it is a multiracial and multi-ethnic nation.

Like all of Latin America, Mexico after independence in 1821 turned its back on a triple heritage: on the Spanish heritage, because we were newly liberated colonies, and on our Indian and black heritages, because we considered them backward and barbaric. We looked towards France, England and the U.S., to become progressive democratic republics.

My system for staying young is to work a lot, to always have a project on the go.

I believe in books that do not go to a ready-made public. I'm looking for readers I would like to make. To win them, to create readers rather than to give something that readers are expecting. That would bore me to death.

I am not interested in slice of life, what I want is a slice of the imagination.

The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

I have two children who died before reaching 30, so who am I to complain about being alive?

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

Here among my books, my wife, my friends and my loves, I have plenty of reasons to keep living.

I use a lot of film images, analogies, and imagination.

I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.

Work is what saves you.

I had the good fortune of having a happy, closely knit family.

The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century.

In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics.

I am a morning writer; I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty, when I go for a swim. Then I come back, have lunch, and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.