Augusto Roa Bastos

“Exile is a living death, a death without a tomb, a burial without earth.”

“One must search in the trash of history for the small stories that have been trampled upon.”

“To write is not to convert the real into words but to make the word real.”

“Reality is not always the truth.”

“Everything is in books. Life is a commentary on something already written. Originality is impossible.”

“A writer is a man who seeks truth in the labyrinth of words.”

“Man is not a rational animal, but a verbal animal.”

“The dead do not die, they change their place in dreams.”

“What is history but a fable agreed upon?”

“Power is not an object to be possessed, but a relationship between human beings.”

“A people who do not know their history are a people condemned to forgetfulness and failure.”

“Memory has the same capricious and unexpected gaps as history.”