I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.
Mario Vargas LlosaIt isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
Mario Vargas LlosaNo democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.
Mario Vargas LlosaThe secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
Mario Vargas LlosaMen do not live by truth alone; they also need lies: those that they invent freely, not those that are imposed on them; those that appear as they are, not smuggled in beneath the clothes of history. Fiction enriches their existence, completes them and, fleetingly, compensates them for this tragic condition which is our lot: always to desire and dream more than we can actually achieve.
Mario Vargas Llosa