Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism th….

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration..

No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike t….

Literature is a form of permanent insurrection. Its mission is to arouse, to disturb, to alarm, to keep men in a constant state of dissatisfaction wi….

The secret to happiness, at least to peace of mind, is knowing how to separate sex from love. And, if possible, eliminating romantic love from your l….

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons..

There are people with a lot of prejudice, a lot of fear of the unknown. They think that immigration is a danger, when really it is a solution. This i….

Once upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of 5. This changed his life. Owing to the adventure tales he read, he discovered a w….

One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser..

We must mistrust utopias: they usually end in holocausts..

‎Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our ….

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 t….

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 ….

This fact was something I also learned from this first novel that I needed personal experience to invent, to fantasize, to create fiction, but at the….

I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings..

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..

Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern..

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa).

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

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present..

Violence represents the worst kind of conformism..