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
Even though what I enjoy most is literature, I would not want to live only in a world of fiction, cut off… — 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
Good literature is absolutely necessary for a society that wants to be free. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa) — 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
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
I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature. — 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
“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
Eroticism is born at a time in civilisation when sexual instinct becomes deanimalised and enriched with contributions from art and from literature.… — 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
I don't accept the idea that literature can be just entertainment and that there is no consequences of literature in the real… — 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
It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
“From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
I think that literature has the important effect of creating free, independent, critical citizens who cannot be manipulated. — 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
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
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
The Nobel prize is a fairytale for a week and a nightmare for a year. You can't imagine the pressure to give… — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
Literature is dangerous: it awakens a rebellious attitude in us. — 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
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 Image
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 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
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his. — Mario Vargas Llosa Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
