Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI do not consider myself a Hispanic writer.371Reflection
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteWriters rush in where publishers fear to tread and where translators fear to tread361Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself351Thought
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI am against the notion of style in itself352Time
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI was able to read a movie before I was able to read a book352Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteWhen I write, I enjoy myself so much that what is being written really needs no reader352Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.353ThoughtTime
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI 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.376Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI 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 me322Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and con… ▶333HumanityLoveReflection
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteThere were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio.355Life
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteTitles are not only important, they are essential for me. I cannot write without a title302Hope
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteWriting for me, even what you call serious writing, is play.302Sadness
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI 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 England369Thought
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI describe my works as books, but my publishers in Spain, in the United States, and elsewhere insist on calling them novels281PoliticsReadingSadness
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me3510Thought
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteNo, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.307Sadness
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteA 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 reader263Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself298Sadness
Guillermo Cabrera InfantePuns are a form of humor with words.211Humor
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteMy mother had been educated at a convent, and she had been converted to communism by my father during Stalin's most rampant period, at the beginning of the 1930s. So she had two g… ▶299Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteDialogue in fiction is always written to be read in silence. The page is the limit. Dialogue on stage and on the screen is meant to be spoken. The voice is the limit.223Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI am the only British writer who writes in Spanish213Love
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteThat is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But th… ▶192Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI have assiduously avoided calling my books novels237Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteSo I do not consider myself a chronicler of my fatherland or even a chronicler of Havana259Reflection
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteWatching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story205Reading
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteI live in London and I am a British subject, although I do write in Spanish, of course216Reflection
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteIf the sleep of reason produces monsters, what does the sleep of unreason produce?227Sadness
Guillermo Cabrera InfanteIf you look closely, there is no book more visual than Three Trapped Tigers, in that it is filled with blank pages, dark pages, it has stars made of words, the famous magical cube… ▶206Reading
