Quotes from Mario Vargas Llosa

Algunos hombres, algunas mujeres, tienen una sensibilidad más intensa que otros, sienten y perciben cosas que a los demás nos pasan desapercibidas.

Ce-mi place mie este s? citesc romanele, nu s? le fac autopsia.

De fiecare data, imi aparea tot mai clar ca unicul lucru pe care doream sa-l fac in viata era sa devin scriitor si astfel mi se intarea convingerea ca singura cale pentru a reusi este aceea de a te darui, trup si suflet, numai literaturii.

el liberalismo no consiste en liberalizar los precios y abrir las fronteras a la competencia internacional, sino en la reforma integral de un país, en su privatización y descentralización a todos los niveles, y en transferir a la sociedad civil —a

Servir, servir, servir Al Ejército de la Nación Servir, servir, servir Con mucha dedicación

Each one of us is, successively, not one but many. And these successive personalities that emerge one from the other tend to present the strangest, most astonishing contrasts among themselves. —José Enrique Rodó, Motives of Proteus

Un estómago cargado, (...) avaricioso, engendra malos pensamientos, avinagra el carácter, fomenta complejos y apetitos sexuales chuecos y crea vocación de delito, una necesidad de castigar en los otros el tormento excrementicio

I know what a man feels close to the woman he loves, but he's affraid to do anything

This definition was not just limited to establishing a method for exploring the specificity of one human group in relation to another. It also desired, from the outset, to renounce the prejudiced and racist ethnography about which the West has never tired of berating itself. The intention could not have been loftier, but the well-known saying tells us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because

But it (serial television) doesn't remain in the mind. It doesn't produce positive effects in political terms, in ideological terms. My impression is that this extraordinary digital revolution is producing also an extraordinary confusion.

Las ideas eran esenciales, pero, si no las acompañaba una acción resuelta de las víctimas —las mujeres y los obreros—, las bellas palabras se harían humo y nunca saldrían de los mentideros parisinos.

We do so many things together. We go to theatres, exhibitions, bookstores, we spend hours and hours discussing politics, books, films, friends. And you think I do these things for the same reason you do, because I enjoy them. But you're wrong. I do them all for it, for the tapeworm. That's how it seems to me: that my whole life is no longer for my sake but for the sake of what I carry inside me, of which I am now no more than a servant.

In individuals, as in society, high culture, sensibility and intelligence can, at times, coexist with the fanaticism of the torturer and the assassin. In the civilization of the spectacle, intellectuals are of interest only if they play the fashion game and become clowns. When religion and the state become confused, freedom irremediably disappears.

El gran adversario de la civilización es, según Hayek, el constructivismo o la ingeniería social, la pretensión de elaborar intelectualmente un modelo económico y político y querer luego implantarlo en la realidad, algo que sólo es posible mediante la fuerza —una violencia que degenera en dictadura— y que ha fracasado en todos los casos en que se intentó.

The genius of the Spanish writer has always flourished through excessive rhetoric, which expresses a fundamental element in our nature and in our culture. If you think of our great writers, all of them are great rhetoricians. Think of Pablo Neruda, for instance, a great poet. It is the exuberance, the excess. Creation is something that appears like a natural phenomena, a kind of transpiration of nature more than an intellectual exercise.

Por lo menos, confiesa que te he dado tema para una novela. ¿No, niño bueno?

Ninguna otra novela me ha dado tanto trabajo; por eso, si tuviera que salvar del fuego una sola de las que he escrito, salvaría ésta.

podría satisfacer su curiosidad morbosa, su apetito chismográfico, ese placer inmenso que produce a los mediocres, la mayoría de la humanidad, saber que los famosos, los respetables, las celebridades, los decentes, están hechos también del mismo barro mugriento que los demás.

Reality and fantasy are fused through the style and through the ease with which the narrator moves from one to the other, more often than not displaying devastatingly sardonic erudition and an underlying skepticism that keeps in check any undue indulgence.

Quería de veras un consejo, piensa, sabía que estabas enamorado de ella y quería saber si te atreverías a decírselo? Qué habría dicho si yo, piensa, qué habría yo si ella. Piensa: ay, Zavalita.

If in this address I were to summon all the writers to whom I owe a few things or a great deal, their shadows would plunge us into darkness. They are innumerable. In addition to revealing the secrets of the storytelling craft, they obliged me to explore the bottomless depths of humanity, admire its heroic deeds and feel horror at its savagery.

Escribir novelas es un acto de rebelión contra la realidad, contra Dios, contra la creación de Dios que es la realidad. Es una tentativa de corrección, cambio o abolición de la realidad real, de su sustitución por la realidad ficticia que el novelista crea.

It's beautiful, as long as you concentrate on the landscape and the birds, because everything man-made there is ugly.

his eyes, he thought that in a few hours he, Lucrecia, and Fonchito would be crossing the skies, leaving behind the thick clouds