I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness. — 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
Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. — 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
When I was young, when I started to write, we were totally convinced that literature was a kind of weapon. — 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
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
I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists.… — 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
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
“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
“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
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
The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I… — 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 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
“If in this address I were to summon all the writers to whom I owe a few things or a great deal,… — 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
This fact was something I also learned from this first novel that I needed personal experience to invent, to fantasize, to create… — 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
“At times I wondered whether writing was not a solipsistic luxury in countries like mine, where there were scant readers, so many… — 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
