Best 8 quotes of Camilo Jose Cela on MyQuotes

I am not, sir, a bad person, though in truth I am not lacking in reasons for being one. [Sp., Yo, senor, no soy malo, aunque no me faltarian motivos para serlo.]

Literature is the denunciation of the times in which one lives.

There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history and the ones who endure it.

When debts are not paid because they cannot be paid, the best thing to do is not talk about them, and shuffle the cards again.

El niño que cantaba flamenco no tiene cara de persona, tiene cara de animal doméstico, de sucia bestia, de pervertida bestia de corral.

En casa hubo un disgusto muy serio con la marcha de Socorrito. -¡Si por lo menos se hubiera ido de Madrid! – decía su hermano Paco, que tenía un concepto geográfico del honor.

Perhaps there is to be found in Pastrana the key to something which happens in Spain more frequently than is necessary. Past splendor overwhelms and in the end exhausts the people's will; and without force of will, as can be seen in so many cases, by being exclusively occupied with the contemplation of the glories of the past, they leave current problems unsolved. When the belly is empty and the mind filled with golden memories, the golden memories continually retreat and at last, though no one goes so far as to admit it, there is even doubt whether they ever existed and there is nothing left of them but a benevolent and useless cultural residue.

Que no hay peor odio que el de la misma sangre, [...], porque a nadie se odia más con más intensos bríos que a aquello a que uno se parece y uno llega a aborrecer el parecido.