I did my homework, of course, by inhaling as much literature as was available to find, so that when it was time to shoot I could hopefully exhale [ Harriet Tubman ].

When I use the term "complex realism", what I'm suggesting is that the writer must be realist, always realist, but not realist in the sense we have usually used the term in literature. If reality today is different from the reality of 30 years ago, we can't keep describing reality in the same way as we did 30 years ago.

When I was a worker I busied myself with socialist or, if you like, marxist literature.

One that actually relates to all Latin American literature: that is, not every author is interested in being a representative of his or her national culture on the global stage.

In journalism, if there's a hole in your story you figure out a way around it because you've got a 4 p.m. deadline. It's a neat skill to have but it's deadly for literature. In literature, you need to stare at that hole, not ignore it. You need to figure it out.

A script is not a piece of literature, it's a process.

Literature has to serve as a moral control of politics.

One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety.

There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired.

Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.