Only if I reach 100 years old will I write a very complete autobiography. Not before.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I remember how my world expanded in amazing fashion by that magical operation of translating words into images, and images into stories.

Mario Vargas Llosa

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, Colombia and Chile. Nowadays, this has changed a lot - fortunately for writers and readers. There is much more integration.

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

A novel is something, while despair is nothing.

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 dreams or readings, impose themselves suddenly and demand attention.

Mario Vargas Llosa

The novels that have fascinated me most are the ones that have reached me less through the channels of the intellect or reason than bewitched me.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I thought that, when I came to New York, that I would have a very life here for three months or three and a half months. And my impression is that it won't be so quiet as I wanted.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I think that literature is something that embraces a much larger experience than politics. It's an expression of what is life, of what are all the dimensions of life. But politics is one among others.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Each book, for me, has been an adventure, a period of time dedicated to study, to document certain facts, to traveling, and also to fantasize and to invent.

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 writing, and the next book will be even better. Maybe if this is not true, it is very useful to keep the illusion alive.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Everyone is in a rush in New York, even in restaurants and in cafes. You dont have the serenity. That, I think, is very important in order to read.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I was absolutely convinced that I wouldn't win the Nobel Prize. My impression was that the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to people more or less affiliated with, let's say, socialist ideas, and that was not my case.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Today, everybody is more or less conscious of the total failure of the Cuban revolution to produce wealth, to produce a better standard of living for the Cubans. With the exception of small radical parties, Latin Americans know that it's a brutal dictatorship and the longest in Latin American history.

Mario Vargas Llosa

There are so many new young poets, novelists, and playwrights who are much less politically committed than the former generations. The trend is to be totally concentrated on the literary aesthetic and to consider politics to be something dirty that shouldn't be mixed with an artistic or a literary vocation.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I don't want to finish my life not being alive. I think that is the saddest thing that can happen to a person. I want to keep living to the end.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I work very hard, you know, but I don't think that I'm working, because what I do pleases me so much. I write about certain things because certain things happen to me.

Mario Vargas Llosa

In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.

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 sophisticated entertainment but a way to act.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes

Only if I reach 100 years old will I write a very complete autobiography. Not before.

I remember how my world expanded in amazing fashion by that magical operation of translating words into images, and images into stories.

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, Colombia and Chile. Nowadays, this has changed a lot - fortunately for writers and readers. There is much more integration.

Good literature always ends up showing those who read it... the inevitable limitation of all power to fulfill human aspirations and desires.

A novel is something, while despair is nothing.

I never get the feeling that I've decided rationally, cold-bloodedly to write a story. On the contrary, certain events or people, sometimes dreams or readings, impose themselves suddenly and demand attention.

The novels that have fascinated me most are the ones that have reached me less through the channels of the intellect or reason than bewitched me.

I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.

I thought that, when I came to New York, that I would have a very life here for three months or three and a half months. And my impression is that it won't be so quiet as I wanted.

I think that literature is something that embraces a much larger experience than politics. It's an expression of what is life, of what are all the dimensions of life. But politics is one among others.

Each book, for me, has been an adventure, a period of time dedicated to study, to document certain facts, to traveling, and also to fantasize and to invent.

In general, a writer would like to think that the best book that he has written is the book that he is writing, and the next book will be even better. Maybe if this is not true, it is very useful to keep the illusion alive.

Everyone is in a rush in New York, even in restaurants and in cafes. You dont have the serenity. That, I think, is very important in order to read.

I was absolutely convinced that I wouldn't win the Nobel Prize. My impression was that the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to people more or less affiliated with, let's say, socialist ideas, and that was not my case.

I don't want to finish my life not being alive. I think that is the saddest thing that can happen to a person. I want to keep living to the end.

I work very hard, you know, but I don't think that I'm working, because what I do pleases me so much. I write about certain things because certain things happen to me.

In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.

We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment but a way to act.