“I must be a very ingenuous reader, because I’ve never thought that novelists mean to say more than what they say. When Franz Kafka says that Gregory Samsa woke up one morning transformed into a gigantic insect, it doesn’t strike me as a symbol of anything, and the only thing that has always intrigued me is what kind of creature he might have been. I believe that in reality there was a time when carpets flew and genies were imprisoned in bottles. I believe Balaam’s ass spoke—as the Bible tells us—and the only regrettable thing is that his voice was not recorded, and I believe that Joshua destroyed the walls of Jericho with the power of his trumpets, and the only regrettable thing is that no one transcribed the demolition music. I believe, indeed, that the lawyer of glass—by Cervantes—really was made of glass, as he believed in his madness, and I truly believe in the joyful truth that Gargantua pissed in torrents over the cathedrals of Paris. Even more: I believe other similar wonders are still happening, and if we don’t see them it is in large measure because we are impeded by the obscurantist rationalism inculcated in us by bad literature teachers.”

Gabriel García Márquez