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.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherazade, in order not to die. It’s one of the oldest urges of mankind. It’s a way of stalling death.

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Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.

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Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Retrospectively, I would agree with Luis Bunuel that sex without sin is like an egg without salt.

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

The language of Mexicans springs from abysmal extremes of power and impotence, domination and resentment.

The women I have loved I have desired for themselves, but also because I feared myself.

There is no creation without tradition. No one creates from nothing.

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