Quotes from Carlos Fuentes

The historical problem of the United States is to admit that it is a multiracial and multi-ethnic nation.

The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

Contrary to the macho culture of Mexico, both my grandmothers were very brave young widows. I was always very close to these hard-working, intelligent women.

My system for staying young is to work a lot, to always have a project on the go.

I live through risk. Without risk there is no art. You should always be on the edge of a cliff about to fall down and break your neck.

Under the veneer of Westernization, the cultures of the Indian world - which have existed for 30,000 years! - continue to live. Sometimes in a magical way, sometimes in the shadows.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

One puts off the biography like you put off death. To write an autobiography is to etch the words on your own gravestone.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

…my books are derived from city images, and the city of my dreams or nightmares is Mexico City. (The Art of Fiction, No. 68. The Paris Review, No. 82, Winter 1981.)

I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.

I've lost audiences, I've recovered them.