Fernando Vallejo

"Money is frozen time converted into abstract value."

"Health is the foundation we ignore until it crumbles."

"Adventure requires recklessness and the acceptance of risk."

"Imagination is the only rebellion available to the powerless."

"Technology promises liberation but delivers new forms of slavery."

"The Colombian language is a language of shortcuts, of ellipses, of things left unsaid."

"I write to exorcise my demons, to rid myself of the poison that accumulates in the soul."

"Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be expelled."

"Colombia is a country where the past devours the present and mortgages the future."

"The worst thing that can happen to a writer is to be understood."

"I have spent my life running away from myself, only to discover I was chasing my own shadow."

"Religion is the opium of the people, but at least opium numbs the pain."

"Every word I write is an act of rebellion against oblivion."

"The family is a conspiracy of silence and comfortable lies."

"In Colombia, we don't have history; we have melodrama."

"Love is the most exquisite form of self-deception."

"To be Colombian is to be condemned to understand suffering intimately."

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there, and we cannot escape."

"Writing is the only honest way to lie."

"Friendship is a luxury for those who can afford to be deceived."

"I reject all romantic notions about suffering; suffering is simply suffering."

"The university teaches you how to think like everyone else."

"Success in literature means having the courage to fail publicly."

"Every revolution begins with someone saying no to the established order."

"The absurd is the only truth that doesn't require justification."

"Colombia's violence is not an aberration; it is the country's true face."

"Happiness is a symptom of lack of understanding."

"The power of words lies in their ability to wound and heal simultaneously."

"I have learned that the only constant in life is contradiction."

"Art that does not disturb is merely decoration."