I must be a very ingenuous reader, because I’ve never thought that novelists mean to say more than what they say. When Franz Kafka says that Gregory Samsa woke up one morning transformed into a gigantic insect, it doesn’t strike me as a symbol of anything, and the only thing that has always intrigued me is what kind of creature he might have been. I believe that in reality there was a time when carpets flew and genies were imprisoned in bottles…. Even more: I believe other similar wonders are still happening, and if we don’t see them it is in large measure because we are impeded by the obscurantist rationalism inculcated in us by bad literature teachers.

GABRIEL GARCÍA MARQUÉZ