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I’ve been thrashed by the critics. I love having critics for breakfast. I’ve been having them for 30 years in Mexico - just eating them like chicken and then throwing the bones away. They have not survived, I have!

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
Throwing
Bones
Critics
Eating
Thrashed
Away
Chicken
Years
Survived
Love
Mexico
Like
Breakfast

More quotes by Carlos Fuentes

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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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In literature, you know only what you imagine
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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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The Mexicans descend from the Aztecs the Peruvians descend from the Incas the Argentineans descend from the boats.
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You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.
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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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Here among my books, my wife, my friends and my loves, I have plenty of reasons to keep living.
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Mexico is a very complex, mysterious country. I will never understand it fully, and that's why I write so much about it, in order to try to understand it.
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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.
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The citizen takes his city for granted far too often. He forgets to marvel.
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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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I like fighting. I get into rows all the time.
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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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I am a literary animal. For me, everything ends in literature.
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Memory is satisfied desire.
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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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I am not interested in slice of life, what I want is a slice of the imagination.
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I had the good fortune of having a happy, closely knit family.
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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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