Things are always best seen when they are a trifle mixed-up, a trifle disordered; the chilly administrative neatness of museums and filing cases, of statistics and cemeteries, is an inhuman and antinatural kind of order;...

Ideas? My head is full of them, one after the other, but they serve no purpose there. They must be put down on paper, one after the other.

There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history and the ones who endure it.

I write from solitude and I speak from solitude…However I did not seek solitude. I found it. And from my solitude I think, work, and live – and I believe that I write and speak...

The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.

Literature is the denunciation of the times in which one lives.

When debts are not paid because they cannot be paid, the best thing to do is not talk about them, and shuffle the cards again.

For a rich and intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision of man’s vulnerability.

It is not difficult to write in Spanish; the Spanish language is a gift from the gods which we Spaniards take for granted. I take comfort therefore in the belief that you wished to pay...

the leading figure in Spain’s literary renewal during the post-war era.