213 Quotes by 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.

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.