Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.

I don't say things to be offensive; I say things because they're funny to me. It amuses me.

Looking back, it amuses me that people imagined that I was a very brash, fearless, redheaded young revolutionary when I was in fact a very insecure, mousy-haired, middle-aged man with a deep fear of authority.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.

I don't blame her, he'd said to me earlier that day, any woman would do the same. I screwed up, I screwed up. I should have been more careful. I don't find it amusing now, but I can imagine that it seems that way to other people, I can imagine that my suffering amuses people. I do so much for them, but they find my suffering amusing. I have to be responsible, though, more discipline, more and more discipline, and if I tried that I would still be married. Not that I blame her, or anyone else, they can do what they want, but I have to be responsible for the world, and none of them know what that feels like. If I don't organize things just right, you see, everything will be destroyed. You understand? I'm not saying I'm God, but I know what it feels like to carry the world. I feel like the little boy with his finder in the dike, like I am doing a small thing, but it takes a lot of concentration. Everything depends on this, I can't even tell you, and I wish I didn't have this burden, this burden that is so much like God's own burden, but given to someone, Doctor, do you see the problem, who does not have the powers of God.

I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

"His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste and amuses himself by applying it triumphantly wherever he travels.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination while the truth is that there's not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.

The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds as it amuses the fancy as it improves the understanding and as it strengthens virtue.