Enrique Vila-Matas Quotes

#1. It's an honor, indeed I'm glad, to join in giving a warm reception to a book that has given me many delightful moments.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#2. I think I have the right to be able to see myself differently from how others see me, to see myself however I want and not to be forced to be this person other people have decided I am.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#3. I long to journey endlessly, always in search of something new. Always alert.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#4. After all, what are we, what is any one of us, if not a combination, particular and exact, of what we have done, what we have read, and what we have imagined?

Enrique Vila-Matas

#5. He has always admired writers who each day begin a journey towards the unknown and who nevertheless spend all their time sitting in a room.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#6. The novel is a hybrid genre and a large part of its charm arises from the alluvial nature of its materials. There is nothing that doesn't suit a novelist in action, when he's in the course of writing his novel.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#7. When it grows dark, we always need someone. This thought, the product of anxiety, only comes to me in the evenings, just when I'm about to end my writerly explorations.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#8. I don't like ferocious irony but rather the kind that vacillates between disappointment and hope. Okay?

Enrique Vila-Matas

#9. To miniaturize is also to conceal.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#10. Had I mentioned to someone around 1795 that I planned to write, anyone with any sense would have told me to write for two hours every day, with or without inspiration. Their advice would have enabled me to benefit from the ten years of my life I totally wasted waiting for inspiration.

Enrique Vila-Matas

#11. As I write, I control my anxiety and anguish thanks to the invaluable aid of irony and humor. But every night I am subdued by an anxiety that knows no irony, and I must wait until the next day to rediscover the blend of anguish and humor that characterizes my writing and that generates my style.

Enrique Vila-Matas