The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to be subsidized by the state. It leads to an intellectual and artistic castration.

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 with themselves.

I 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.

When I was young, when I started to write, we were totally convinced that literature was a kind of weapon.

Since it is impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent, dream and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary.

Reading was such an enrichment of my life. And it was that pleasure that I had as a very young reader probably that is the origin of my vocation.

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.