Mario Vargas Llosa

Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.

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.

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.

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

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.

Literature is dangerous: it awakens a rebellious attitude in us.

Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.

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 life, which is the love that makes you suffer. That way, I assure you, you live with greater tranquility and enjoy things more.

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

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

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

Prosperity or egalitarianism -- you have to choose. I favor freedom -- you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.

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

But what do I have? The things I'm told and the things I tell, that's all. And as far as I know, that never yet made anyone fly.

It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.