José Baroja

"I think that living only from writing is a privilege, in economic terms, that only some writers have achieved and to which, probably, all authors aspire: a difficult goal that is not impossible."

"For a writer, life must be the focus that death illuminates daily."

"It is often said that children do not read. Well, I'd say that if adults don't start reading, it's not fair to accuse little ones of not reading. They must see us with a book in our hands."

"Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off."

"The memory is like the wind, sometimes warm, gentle and prone to a smile, sometimes violent, merciless and unwelcome. The memory looks like the wind, period, and that explains why the wind can bring with it the memory."

"No one said this would be easy (...) Writing is not. Do not forget that the pen is the tool, yes, but art must be born from you, from your readings..."

"It's payday, reason enough for customers to cram every space in the venue looking for a beer. Today there is money ergo there is drink. Bibere ergosum."

"God? Christ. The Virgin. This Guadalajara is so rich in cathedrals, so rich in appearances, that I am sure that these are the true foundations of the city and its misfortune: the rain washes away the sin of this world..."

"That's the writer's game: everything is about us."

"The closest thing to purgatory is a government agency, only the first does not exist and the second is very real."

"In my words, the story is a short drink, but capable of startling you for hours, something like a little shot of tequila in the middle of a game that we have voluntarily joined."

"In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances."

"Who today asks your poem where the country is going?"

"Literary art feeds on the fragility of life."

"Every literary work is a political act—not in the pamphleteering sense, which has done so much harm to art, but in that intimate—and sometimes devastating—way in which a phrase, an image, a character can shake the reader enough to make them doubt their own certainties."

"The short story is [...] a coup de théâtre, aimed directly at the reader."

"Telling stories from the margins is a symbolic act of justice."

"Literature is a political act, not driven by utility, but by the essence of being human."

"Truth does not justify gratuitous cruelty."