Writer Quotes by Mario Vargas Llosa

A novel is something, while despair is nothing.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

Literature is dangerous: it awakens a rebellious attitude in us.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

Reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life

— Mario Vargas Llosa

I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible!

— Mario Vargas Llosa

A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be

— Mario Vargas Llosa

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

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

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

“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

A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

“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

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

I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

I love stories, and my life is principally concentrated on stories, but not with a pretense of scientific precision.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

“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

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

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

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

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what…

— Mario Vargas Llosa

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

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

“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

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

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