Down on the West Coast I get this feeling like it all could happen.
When I was young, when I started to write, we were totally convinced that literature was a kind of weapon.
Men do not live by truth alone; they also need lies: those that they invent freely, not those that are imposed on them; those that appear as they are, not smuggled in beneath the clothes of history. Fiction enriches their existence, completes them and, fleetingly, compensates them for this tragic condition which is our lot: always to desire and dream more than we can actually achieve.
I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.
I have a chest full of all the insults, villainies, and infamies a man is capable of withstanding. . . . If you become famous, you will have to go through that.
In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.
I always write a draft version of the novel in which I try to develop, not the story, not the plot, but the possibilities of the plot. I write without thinking much, trying to overcome all kinds of self-criticism, without stopping, without giving any consideration to the style or structure of the novel, only putting down on paper everything that can be used as raw material, very crude material for later development in the story.
Rebellion is obsolete - change things from the inside working out.
Every journey has a secret destination of which the traveller is unaware.
When you jump across a canyon, cautious small steps and vacillation won't work. Sometimes you just have to go for it.
Starting out as a junior varsity coach in high school you pick up things along the way and put them all together. Something has gotta come out of it. It's basically stuff I picked up from other people.