I wouldn't reread Sartre today. Compared to everything I've read since, his fiction seems dated and has lost much of its value.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Faulkner was the first novelist I read with pen and paper in hand because his technique stunned me.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Eroticism is born at a time in civilisation when sexual instinct becomes deanimalised and enriched with contributions from art and from literature. A world of theatricality emerges around the act of love.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.

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 behind a good novel, but in particular, there is a lot of work - a lot of patience, a lot of stubbornness, and a critical spirit.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature.

Mario Vargas Llosa

When I was at university in the Fifties, Latin America was full of dictators. Trujillo was the emblematic figure because, of course, of his cruelty, corruption, extravagance, and theatricalities.

Mario Vargas Llosa

My three years in politics was very instructive about the way in which the appetite for political power can destroy a human mind, destroy principles and values, and transform people into little monsters.

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 am not going to participate in professional politics again.

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 more or less informed about what's going on.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I think that literature has the important effect of creating free, independent, critical citizens who cannot be manipulated.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I think everybody, or the great majority of human beings, have this aspiration to become other: to live a different identity, at least for a while.

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 produce changes, but I think the social and political effect of literature is much less controllable than I thought.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I remember, when I was young, to have a literary or artistic vocation was really dramatic because you were so isolated from the common world. You felt that you were marginal, and if you dared to try to organise your life around your vocation, you knew you'd be completely segregated.

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 of history.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more literary than political.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I am in favor of economic freedom, but I am not a conservative.

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

Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes

I wouldn't reread Sartre today. Compared to everything I've read since, his fiction seems dated and has lost much of its value.

Faulkner was the first novelist I read with pen and paper in hand because his technique stunned me.

Eroticism is born at a time in civilisation when sexual instinct becomes deanimalised and enriched with contributions from art and from literature. A world of theatricality emerges around the act of love.

Reality is the richest thing there is, the most important thing there is. Our imagination allows us to live an artificial life that is wonderful, extremely rich, but I don't believe any artist would dare to say that artifice is better than real life.

Good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is, without a doubt, hard work. There are many things behind a good novel, but in particular, there is a lot of work - a lot of patience, a lot of stubbornness, and a critical spirit.

Couldn't imagine any other way of living, outside of books, outside my work. Which doesn't mean I am not interested in other things, of course - I am interested in many things. But the center, the crux, is always literature.

When I was at university in the Fifties, Latin America was full of dictators. Trujillo was the emblematic figure because, of course, of his cruelty, corruption, extravagance, and theatricalities.

My three years in politics was very instructive about the way in which the appetite for political power can destroy a human mind, destroy principles and values, and transform people into little monsters.

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

I am not going to participate in professional politics again.

If you live in a country where there is nothing comparable to free information, often literature becomes the only way to be more or less informed about what's going on.

Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt.

I think that literature has the important effect of creating free, independent, critical citizens who cannot be manipulated.

I think everybody, or the great majority of human beings, have this aspiration to become other: to live a different identity, at least for a while.

Sartre said that wars were acts and that, with literature, you could produce changes in history. Now, I don't think literature doesn't produce changes, but I think the social and political effect of literature is much less controllable than I thought.

I remember, when I was young, to have a literary or artistic vocation was really dramatic because you were so isolated from the common world. You felt that you were marginal, and if you dared to try to organise your life around your vocation, you knew you'd be completely segregated.

In fiction, you are not limited by real facts. You can manipulate reality; you can invent without being disloyal to the essence of history.

Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more literary than political.

I am in favor of economic freedom, but I am not a conservative.

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