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Quotes by Spanish Authors
"There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse."
"As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable ever-smaller dolls within. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections."
"To Senor Sempere, the best friend a book could ever have: you opened the doors to the world for me and showed me how to go through them."
"Ben invented mathematical theories that even he didn't manage to remember and wrote such bizarre tales of adventure that he ended up destroying them a week after they were finished, embarrassed at the thought that he had penned them."
"In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom."
"Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches."
"He let the hours go by lost in the magic of words, shedding his skin and his name, feeling like another person. He allowed himself to be carried away by the dreams of shadowy characters, the only refuge left for him."
"I write short, my words tight to the thread of the narrative."
"When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine."
"That as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive."
"Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not."
"Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human."
"What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing."
"To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture."
"He was a very private person, and sometimes it seemed to me that he was no longer interested in the world or in other people… I got the feeling that Julián was living in the past, locked in his memories. Julián lived within himself, for his books and inside them—a comfortable prison of his own design."
"You say this as if you envied him."
"There are worse prisons than words."
"Happiness is realizing that nothing is too important."
"Anyone who truly loves God travels securely."
"Sometimes memories follow you wherever you go-you don't need to take them with you."
"Man...heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her."
"If you don't trust a novelist, who are you going to trust?"
"Few things are more deceptive than memories."
"Destiny is usually around the corner. Like a thief, like a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it."
"You don't look well," he pronounced."Indigestion," I replied."From what?""Reality.""Join the queue."
"The day I charge an unbeliever like you for the word of God will be the day I'm struck dead by lightning, and with good reason."
"Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things."
"If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!"
"God is really another artist. He invented the giraffe the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things."
"Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."
"I guessed she must be, at most, twenty, but there was something about her manner that made me think she could be ageless. She seemed trapped in that state of perpetual youth reserved for mannequins in shop windows."
"Julian spoke with the clear, unequivocal lucidity of madmen who have escaped the hypocrisy of having to abide by a reality that makes no sense."
"I don't suppose you have many friends. Neither do I. I don't trust people who say they have a lot of friends. It's a sure sign that they don't really know anyone."
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