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I am the only British writer who writes in Spanish

Guillermo Cabrera Infante

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Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Age: 75 †
Born: 1929
Born: April 22
Died: 2005
Died: February 21
Essayist
Journalist
Linguist
Novelist
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Guillermo Cain
Writing
Spanish
Writes
British
Writer
Literature

More quotes by Guillermo Cabrera Infante

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A very wise author once said that a writer writes for himself, and then publishes for money. I write for myself and publish just for the reader
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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Cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, Cigars are for eternity.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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Many of my books have begun with the title, because naming a work already in progress makes no sense to me.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I think all writing is done through memory
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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My parents were founders of the Cuban Communist Party, and I grew up extremely poor.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I have assiduously avoided calling my books novels
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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Dialogue in fiction is always written to be read in silence. The page is the limit. Dialogue on stage and on the screen is meant to be spoken. The voice is the limit.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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When I write, the first blank page, or any blank page, means nothing to me. What means something is a page that has been filled with words.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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But I do not have the reader in mind when I write. No true writer does that
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I wrote for a weekly magazine and then edited a literary magazine, but I did not really feel comfortable with the profession of journalism itself
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all.
Guillermo Cabrera Infante