Mario Vargas Llosa Quotes
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Only if I reach 100 years old will I write a very complete autobiography. Not before.
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What is essential in love is what the French call 'amour fou.' What is that in English? Crazy love? That doesn't sound as beautiful. It's a total kind of love that not only embraces feelings, actions, but a kind of understanding of the world from the perspective of love.
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Good literature is absolutely necessary for a society that wants to be free.
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¿Tienen algo que ver con los intereses de los humildes las querellas retóricas de los partidos burgueses?
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I learnt to read when I was five, and I think that is the most important thing that happened to me.
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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.
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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.
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Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty.
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It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
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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.
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Ahora tenemos un peronismo que es todo: es la extrema derecha, es el centro, es el centro izquierda, es la extrema izquierda, es la democracia y es el terrorismo, es la demagogia y es la insensatez... Todo es el peronismo...
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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.
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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.
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It is easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it.
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You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.
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Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity. We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth.
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A novel is something, while despair is nothing.
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The Nobel prize is a fairytale for a week and a nightmare for a year. You can't imagine the pressure to give interviews, to go to book fairs.
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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.
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Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.