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I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

Carlos Fuentes

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Carlos Fuentes
Age: 83 †
Born: 1928
Born: November 11
Died: 2012
Died: May 15
Diplomat
Journalist
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Panamá
Book
Wrote
Good
Based
Things
Writer
Think
Already
Thinking
Knew
Books
Reading
Experience
Factual

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I started my own magazine with drawings, commentary, news, film reviews and drawings.
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I need, therefore I imagine.
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Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.
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Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.
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Robinson Crusoe, the first capitalist hero, is a self-made man who accepts objective reality and then fashions it to his needs through the work ethic, common sense, resilience, technology, and, if need be, racism and imperialism.
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Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.
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What America does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is to understand others.
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You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you dont necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican.
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The French equate intelligence with rational discourse, the Russians with intense soul-searching. For the Mexican, intelligence is inseparable from maliciousness.
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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.
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The Mexicans descend from the Aztecs the Peruvians descend from the Incas the Argentineans descend from the boats.
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Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
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Incredible the animal that first dreamed of another animal.
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There must be something beyond slaughter and barbarism to support the existence of mankind and we must all help search for it.
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Children know how to be cruel, and the cruelty of their elders is the surest residue of the malaise the young feel toward things strange, things other, things that reveal our own ignorance or insufficiency
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Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.
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I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society.
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One puts off the biography like you put off death. To write an autobiography is to etch the words on your own gravestone.
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Like all of Latin America, Mexico after independence in 1821 turned its back on a triple heritage: on the Spanish heritage, because we were newly liberated colonies, and on our Indian and black heritages, because we considered them backward and barbaric. We looked towards France, England and the U.S., to become progressive democratic republics.
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No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that.
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