“All writing is garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try and put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs.”

“They put lipstick on the pig to try to sell it to somebody that didn't know what they were buying.”

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

“Just because people throw it out and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage.”

“People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”

“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”

“What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.”

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”

“In the words of Marcel Proust — and this applies to any woman in the world — if you can stay up and listen with a fair degree of attention to whatever garbage, no matter how stupid it is that they're coming out with, till ten minutes past four in the morning… you're in.”

““DO YOU HEAR ME?” I now screamed to the heavens, driving this information into the deepest crevices of my mind. “I, VICTOR EDMUNDO VILLASEÑOR, TAKE THIS HOLY OATH BEFORE YOU, GOD ALMIGHTY, as your son, to write my people’s story WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL! I’ll write! I’ll do my part with all the power and intensity that I put into wrestling, hunting, trying to castrate myself, and chess!”