Mario Vargas Llosa quotes - page 2

We all believe in the regulations, but you have to know how to interpret them. (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 the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa) View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
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 sacred as his mother or his wife. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Since it is impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent, dream and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
You can't make facts fit the rules, it is the other way round. The rules have to be adopted to fit the facts. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Well, at heart I knew she'd never be a normal woman. And I didn't want her to be one, because what I loved in her were the indomitable and unpredictable aspects of her personality. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space... (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 obsessions and memories. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty. View quote
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. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa
I 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. View quote
Mario Vargas Llosa