I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible! — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Literature is dangerous: it awakens a rebellious attitude in us. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Literature is a form of permanent insurrection. Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I love stories, and my life is principally concentrated on stories, but not with a pretense of scientific precision. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
In fiction, you are not limited by real facts. You can manipulate reality; you can invent without being disloyal to the essence… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
If you live in a country where there is nothing comparable to free information, often literature becomes the only way to be… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Sartre said that wars were acts and that, with literature, you could produce changes in history. Now, I don't think literature doesn't… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
In general, a writer would like to think that the best book that he has written is the book that he is… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Once upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of 5. This changed his life. Owing… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“Screen fictions are intense in their immediacy and ephemeral in terms of their effects: they seize us and then release us almost… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I never get the feeling that I've decided rationally, cold-bloodedly to write a story. On the contrary, certain events or people, sometimes… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“My impression is that life—a big word, I know—inflicts themes on a writer through certain experiences that impress themselves on his consciousness… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“Fictions exist because of this fact. Because we have only one life, and our desires and fantasies demand a thousand lives. Because… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I always write a draft version of the novel in which I try to develop, not the story, not the plot, but… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“A person who does not read, or reads little, or reads only trash, is a person with an impediment: he can speak… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“It is the case that, albeit to a lesser extent, all fictions make their readers live "the impossible", taking them out of… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“Because of literature we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Good literature always ends up showing those who read it... the inevitable limitation of all power to fulfill human aspirations and desires. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“You cannot teach creativity—how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is, without a doubt, hard work. There are many things… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano’s class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia.… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
When I was young, I was a passionate reader of Sartre. I've read the American novelists, in particular the lost generation -… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
To write is a relief from life's problems. It is a way in which you revenge yourself. In art, the writer achieves… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I think everybody, or the great majority of human beings, have this aspiration to become other: to live a different identity, at least for… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
I think if you're impregnated with good literature, with good culture, you're much more difficult to manipulate, and you're much more aware of the… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Each book, for me, has been an adventure, a period of time dedicated to study, to document certain facts, to traveling, and also to… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
“they knew what we’re doing for them, they’d kiss our feet. But mentally they are closer to the crocodile and the hippopotamus than to… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
When I was growing up, the Spanish-speaking world was Balkanized. We were isolated. We didn't know what was happening in cultural terms in Ecuador,… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share
