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The truths that seem most truthful, if you look at them from all sides, if you look at them close up, turn out to be either half truths or lies.

Mario Vargas Llosa

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Mario Vargas Llosa
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: March 28
Dramaturge
Essayist
Film Director
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
Lying
Truthful
Turns
Truths
Half
Lies
Truth
Close
Seems
Seem
Look
Turn
Looks
Either
Sides

More quotes by Mario Vargas Llosa

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North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.
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It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.
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When I was young, when I started to write, we were totally convinced that literature was a kind of weapon.
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I think in a country like mine, violence is at the root of all human relations.
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I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness.
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We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment, but a way to act.
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It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
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A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.
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I completely believe that - literature for me is a way of life. That's probably true of all writers or all artists. I think in the end this kind of activity absorbs one in such a way that it becomes one's way of life.
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Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation.
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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.
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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.
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One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.
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Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.
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I learned to read at the age of five, in Brother Justiniano's class at the De la Salle Academy in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It is the most important thing that has ever happened to me. Almost seventy years later I remember clearly how the magic of translating the words in books into images enriched my life, breaking the barriers of time and space.
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You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.
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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.
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A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be
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Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.
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There are many things behind a good novel, but in particular there is a lot of work - a lot of patience, a lot of stubbornness, and a critical spirit.
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