Take what interests and knowledge you can from books, but do not let them replace words and thoughts of your own.

Personal affection is a luxury you can have only after all your enemies are eliminated. Until then, everyone you love is a hostage, sapping your courage and corrupting your judgment.

Nothing has to be funny. Sometimes I just laugh to heal my soul.

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.

Theatre takes place all the time wherever one is and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.

I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant. Not: 'This is Dominican food. This is a Spanish word.' I trust my readers, even non-Spanish ones.

Every time I surrender to stress, aren’t I advertising the unreliability of God?

The forces you are struggling with, that you feel are holding you back - are illusions. They are not real - they never have been. See only the good that you desire in your mind.

I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

Prayer TV looks like pay TV to me.

There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better.