Quotes By Guillermo Cabrera Infante

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.

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.

I first came out against Castro in June 1968, fifteen months after my book had been published, and you cannot imagine how quickly a void was created around me.

I don't have any style.

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.

I do not consider myself a Hispanic writer.

My parents were founders of the Cuban Communist Party, and I grew up extremely poor.

Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer.

I describe my works as books, but my publishers in Spain, in the United States, and elsewhere insist on calling them novels.

I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost.

I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.

A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader.

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.

I am a writer of fragments.

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.

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story.

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.

There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio.

No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

I was able to read a movie before I was able to read a book.

Titles are not only important, they are essential for me. I cannot write without a title.

I was never a true journalist, I was a movie critic.

When I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader.

I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips.

I am the only British writer who writes in Spanish.

I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels.

The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.

You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that.

For me, words are just words, nothing else.