I grew up with the idealistic notion that writing and literature were noble causes. I had no inkling, no sense of what I would eventually encounter in terms of people who weren't being sincere. I'm not saying that it happens always or a lot, but it happens enough that sometimes it makes me feel a little queasy.

Oscar Hijuelos

As a fiction writer you train yourself to think about situations subjectively. I don't really care for narratives that are just A, B, C, D, and then E. I like the aura that fiction has, how it can conjure up dream imagery. It's a sort of emotional speculation that you can shape and work with.

Oscar Hijuelos

emotional dream thinking

A great novel is worth one thousand films.

Oscar Hijuelos

film novel writing

A lot of people consider my books to be straightforward, but I think that I write from atmosphere to atmosphere rather than from event to event.

Oscar Hijuelos

writing book thinking

If I write a paragraph and I don't get a certain lift from it, if I don't feel connected to it emotionally, then it's dead to me. When I'm reading other fiction writers, if I don't get any emotional investment from the writer, if it's just intellectual or clever - you know, most writing that passes as deep is just clever - I don't feel any connection.

Oscar Hijuelos

reading clever writing

Oh yes!...The sweet summons of God to man. That's when He calls you up to His arms. And it's the most beautiful thing, a rebirth, a new life. But, just the same I'm in no rush to find out.

Oscar Hijuelos

beautiful sweet men

I have never - I have never let go of my childhood contacts. My best friends from childhood are still my best friends.

Oscar Hijuelos

never best friends childhood

It's true that immigrant novels have to do with people going from one country to another, but there isn't a single novel that doesn't travel from one place to another, emotionally or locally.

Oscar Hijuelos

place country people travel

Music infuses your spirit with a certain energy that I try to convey in my work.

Oscar Hijuelos

your music energy work

Of course, I grew up hearing Latin music but, to be honest, aside from my personal circumstances, like most kids I wanted to rebel against what I considered to be such old fashioned fare.

Oscar Hijuelos

personal rebel music circumstances

If you start believing all that press about you, you're in trouble. I don't even read my reviews.

Oscar Hijuelos

believing start you trouble

When you write fiction, you can sort of invent more but also pack it with emotions that are very pertinent to you. Whereas with nonfiction, you have to be as factual as possible but also hopefully - also bring... emotional relevance to the piece.

Oscar Hijuelos

emotions possible you emotional

Nightclubs are the equivalent of a Catholic Church in a poor country. You hear a lot of stuff about churches filled with gold while the people are starving. But what elitists don't get is that for poor people, the church is their own mansion. Nightclubs fill the same function.

Oscar Hijuelos

you church gold people

I like to encourage young talented writers to try and help them get published and so forth, but that's all. That's the best I can do.

Oscar Hijuelos

help best try i-can

People in their forties, fifties, and onward enjoy the whole world of books in a different way than the Internet-age kids do.

Oscar Hijuelos

enjoy people way world

As a kid I had all kinds of questions about how I fit it with my neighborhood and friends and other Latinos.

Oscar Hijuelos

how questions kid friends

I teach at Duke, and I have students who are all of twenty who want to write memoirs, and you know it's all pretty interesting stuff, but a lot of them lack gravitas, you know.

Oscar Hijuelos

know you students want

I enjoy listening to contemporary rock on the college stations while I'm taking long walks, love gospel and soul music, am fascinated by hip-hop and rap as the new kind of urban 'beat' poetry and, come to think of it, find something interesting about just any kind of music.

Oscar Hijuelos

music poetry soul love

Latins are predisposed to thinking about the past. Catholicism has a lot to do with it because Catholicism is a contemplation of the past, of symbols that are supposed to be eternally present.

Oscar Hijuelos

present contemplation past thinking

When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance.

Oscar Hijuelos

you work writing way