"I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them."

Experience

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Experience as articulated by Carlos Fuentes. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Experience provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes Macías was a Mexican novelist, essayist and ambassador to France. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962), Aura (1962), Terra Nostra (1975), The Old Gringo (1985) and Christopher Unborn (1987). In his obituary, The New York Times described Fuentes as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world" and an important influence on the Latin American Boom, the "explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and '70s", while The Guardian called him "Mexico's most celebrated novelist". His many literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize as well as Mexico's highest award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor (1999). He was often named as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won.

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More by Carlos Fuentes

"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."

— Carlos Fuentes
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"I am a morning writer I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty, when I go for a swim. Then I come back, have lunch, and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing."

— Carlos Fuentes
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"You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican."

— Carlos Fuentes
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"I am not interested in slice of life, what I want is a slice of the imagination."

— Carlos Fuentes
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More about Experience

"You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience."

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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"Film is such a bizarre vehicle for acting. It's such a bizarre experience. I don't think you ever really get familiar with it. If you do get familiar with it, you're probably not that good anymore."

— Liev Schreiber
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"A resilient spirit knows that the truest form of bravery is vulnerability."

— Confucius
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"Every great person is always being helped by everybody; for their gift is to get good out of all things and all persons."

— John Ruskin
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