The possibility of being as free with the camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.
Carlos FuentesRead
For me, life without literature is inconceivable. I think that Don Quixote in a physical sense never existed, but Don Quixote exists more than anybody who existed in 1605. Much more. There's nobody who can compete with Don Quixote or with Hamlet. So in the end we have the reality of the book as the reality of the world and the reality of history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Literature is a fundamental part of life, capturing truths that surpass historical existence.
Carlos Fuentes emphasizes the importance of literature in our lives, arguing that characters like Don Quixote and Hamlet embody a deeper reality that transcends their fictional origins. They represent universal truths and insights that resonate more profoundly than historical figures, suggesting that the influence of literature shapes our understanding of existence and reality itself.
Themes
LiteratureDon QuixoteHamletRealityCharacters
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of storytelling in education.
More from Carlos Fuentes
All quotes →Writing is a struggle against silence.
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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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One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.
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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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You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't 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.
Carlos FuentesRead
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I don't know the literary world; I was scared of being confronted with famous names, not knowing what they had written. It was occupied territory I was entering.
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Nobody ever asks me why my characters don't text each other. Besides, as soon as you put something 'electronic' in a book, it's already out of date by the time it's published: everything will have changed. Human emotion, on the other hand, will never change.
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An unread author is an author who is a victim of the worst kind of censorship, indifference - a censorship more effective than the Ecclesiastical Index.
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Throughout my career, when I have been rejected, there was sometimes subtext, and it was this: People will not read your work because these are not universal stories.
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We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character - her characters are vigorous and elementary; not for comedy - hers is grim and crude; not for a philosophic view of life - hers is that of a country parson's daughter; but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that, as we say in real life, they have only to open the door to make themselves felt.
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Some Native American writers enjoy being called Native American writers.
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