Quote

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.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mario Vargas Llosa
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: March 28
Dramaturge
Essayist
Film Director
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
Men
Political
Places
Exploitation
Truth
Among
Discrimination
Women
Protect
Essentially
Better
Equal
Appears
Sectarianism
Human
Literature
Stupidity
Sows
Humans
Nations
Racism
Protects
Nothing
Religious
Prejudice
Invariably
Great
Fear
Injustice
Nationalism

More quotes by Mario Vargas Llosa

Image
I think in a country like mine, violence is at the root of all human relations.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
We must mistrust utopias: they usually end in holocausts.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
I have been always fascinated and seduced by history, which I think is very close, very close to literature.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure...but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
There are people with a lot of prejudice, a lot of fear of the unknown. They think that immigration is a danger, when really it is a solution. This is an interesting issue, because it will be a central question of our time.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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
Image
A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
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.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
I write because I'm unhappy. I write because it's a way of fighting unhappiness.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Image
The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to be subsidized by the state. It leads to an intellectual and artistic castration.
Mario Vargas Llosa