Best Carlos Fuentes Quotes & Sayings

The Mexicans descend from the Aztecs; the Peruvians descend from the Incas; the Argentineans descend from the boats. — Carlos Fuentes

Because it's a fucking disaster to be creative when you know you're not Mozart or Keats. Dammit, I got tired of scratching around in my past. There's nothing in me to justify the pretension of creativity. This came before anything, before you, before Raquel, this is a matter of my own emptiness, my awareness of my own limits, maybe my sterility. Does what I'm saying to you seem awful? Now you want to come along and sell me an illusion, which I don't believe in but which does make me believe that either you're a fool or you underestimate my intelligence. Why don't you just leave me alone, so I can fill the emptiness in my own way? Let me see things for myself, learn if something can still grow in my soul, an idea, a faith, because I swear to you, Laura, my soul is more desolate than this rock landscape you see here ... why? — Carlos Fuentes

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. — Carlos Fuentes

The French equate intelligence with rational discourse, the Russians with intense soul-searching. For the Mexican, intelligence is inseparable from maliciousness. — Carlos Fuentes

Look at me, chica." When she does, I repeat, "Eres hermosa."
"What does it mean?"
"You're beautiful. — Simone Elkeles

Do I hear a challenge?" she whispers, "Oh, Carlos. You know I can't resist a challenge. — Simone Elkeles

Just so you know, I'm goin' to enlist."
"I'm proud of you. But why?"
I groan against the pain but manage to give him a half smile. "I want to make sure Kiara's got a boyfriend who has more to offer than a hot bod and a face that could make angels weep. — Simone Elkeles

The logic of the symbol does not express the experiment; it is the experiment. Language is the phenomenon, and the observation of the phenomenon changes its nature. — Carlos Fuentes

The novel is the privileged vehicle of two ways of being: narrative and freedom: to be new (novel) in a speech open to all, and to be free in a speech that never concludes. — Carlos Fuentes

Didn't you learn anything from my mistakes?" he asks.
Shit, when Alex was in the Latino Blood back in Chicago I worshiped him. "You don't want to hear my answer to that. — Simone Elkeles

I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist.' — Carlos Fuentes

I like fighting. I get into rows all the time. — Carlos Fuentes

There are people whose external reality is generous because it is transparent, because you can read everything, accept everything, understand everything about them: people who carry their own sun with them. — Carlos Fuentes

You, yesterday, did the usual things, just as any day, You don't know if it's worth remembering. You would prefer to remember, there lying in the half-darkness of the bedroom, not what has happened already but what is going to happen. In your half-darkness your eyes would prefer to look ahead, not behind, and they do not know how to foresee the past. — Carlos Fuentes

You will wish and not wish to see. — Carlos Fuentes

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others. — Carlos Fuentes

The new world economic order is not an exercise in philanthropy, but in enlightened self-interest for everyone concerned. — Carlos Fuentes

And don't give me the same old story:
"We're in Mexico. Pray."
You'd be better off taking a snake rattle. — Carlos Fuentes

What America does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is to understand others. — Carlos Fuentes

The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century. — Carlos Fuentes

There is no creation without tradition; the 'new' is an inflection on a preceding form; novelty is always a variation on the past. — Carlos Fuentes

The citizen takes his city for granted far too often. He forgets to marvel. — Carlos Fuentes

In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics. — Carlos Fuentes

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. — Carlos Fuentes

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down. — Carlos Fuentes

Since I neither want not can influence the events of the world, my mission is to preserve the internal integrity and equilibrium of my mind; that will be in which the manor in which I recover the purity of the original act; I shall be my own citadel, and to it I shall retire to protect myself against a hostile and corrupt world. I shall be my own citadel and, within it, my own and only citizen. — Carlos Fuentes

A garter. You're supposed to take it off and keep it as a memento. K-k-kinda like a trophy
for going far sexually with a girl. It's stupid, really. And kind of d-d-degrading if I think about
it too m-m-much."
"I know what it is," he says, amusement evident in his voice. "I just wanted to hear your
explanation. — Simone Elkeles

At a very young age, I was influenced enormously by Julio Cortazar or Carlos Fuentes. In that literature, there's always an exploration of different perspectives, points of view. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Language is always the companion of Empire and Empire ... is one Monarch and one Sword. — Carlos Fuentes

Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror. — Carlos Fuentes

Do you ever lose the ego?" Westford asks me.
"Yeah." When his daughter kisses me, my ego flies out the window. — Simone Elkeles

And just so you know for the future, I like my double-chocolate chip cookies warm and soft in the middle ... and without magnets glued to them."
"Me, too. When you decide to bake me some, let me know. — Simone Elkeles

If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let's all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best. — Carlos Fuentes

Girls like you want to cut guy's nuts off and hang 'em from your rearview mirror. — Simone Elkeles

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 — Carlos Fuentes

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. — Carlos Fuentes