34 Quotes By Mario Vargas Llosa, The Recipient Of Nobel Prize In Literature
![One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35320.jpg)
One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.
![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...](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35321.jpg)
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...
![Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35322.jpg)
Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.
![Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35323.jpg)
Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.
![Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35324.jpg)
Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it
![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.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35326.jpg)
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.
![Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35325.jpg)
Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)
![I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35327.jpg)
I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings.
![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.” Mario Vargas Llosa](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35329.jpg)
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.” Mario Vargas Llosa
![Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35332.jpg)
Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.
![No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35331.jpg)
No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.
![Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35337.jpg)
Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.
![Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35335.jpg)
Revolution will free society of its afflictions, while science will free the individual of his.
![Well, at heart I knew she'd never be a normal woman. And I didn't want her to be one, because what I loved in her were the indomitable and unpredictable aspects of her personality](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35334.jpg)
Well, at heart I knew she'd never be a normal woman. And I didn't want her to be one, because what I loved in her were the indomitable and unpredictable aspects of her personality
![Writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible!](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35338.jpg)
Writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible!
![It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35339.jpg)
It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.
![I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35345.jpg)
I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores.
![I am somewhat allergic to explanations that divide men and women into frozen categories and attribute to each sex its characteristic virtues and shortcomings.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35349.jpg)
I am somewhat allergic to explanations that divide men and women into frozen categories and attribute to each sex its characteristic virtues and shortcomings.
![He was a man in the prime of his life, his fifties...broad forehead, aquiline nose, penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35348.jpg)
He was a man in the prime of his life, his fifties...broad forehead, aquiline nose, penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness.
![Living is worth the effort if only because without life we could not read or imagine stories.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35355.jpg)
Living is worth the effort if only because without life we could not read or imagine stories.
![We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35354.jpg)
We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.
![It's easier to imagine the death of one person than those of a hundred or a thousand. When multiplied, suffering becomes abstract. It's not easy to be moved by abstract things.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35381.jpg)
It's easier to imagine the death of one person than those of a hundred or a thousand. When multiplied, suffering becomes abstract. It's not easy to be moved by abstract things.
![Because of literature we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35360.jpg)
Because of literature we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings.
![Porque a felicidade era temporária, individual, excepcionalmente dual, raríssimas vezes tripartida e nunca coletiva, municipal.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35383.jpg)
Porque a felicidade era temporária, individual, excepcionalmente dual, raríssimas vezes tripartida e nunca coletiva, municipal.
![Instead of speaking of justice and injustice, freedom and oppression, classless society and class society, they talked in terms of God and the Devil.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35379.jpg)
Instead of speaking of justice and injustice, freedom and oppression, classless society and class society, they talked in terms of God and the Devil.
![One of the most damaging myths of our time is that poor countries live in poverty because of a conspiracy of the rich countries, who arrange things so as to keep them underdeveloped, in order to exploit them.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35378.jpg)
One of the most damaging myths of our time is that poor countries live in poverty because of a conspiracy of the rich countries, who arrange things so as to keep them underdeveloped, in order to exploit them.
![They had forgotten the abuses, the murders, the corruption, the spying, the isolation, the fear: horror had become myth. Everybody had jobs and there wasn't so much crime.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35376.jpg)
They had forgotten the abuses, the murders, the corruption, the spying, the isolation, the fear: horror had become myth. Everybody had jobs and there wasn't so much crime.
![Their curses were not aimed at any definite target: they swore at such abstractions as God, the Officers, the Mothers of Others, with more music than meaning.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35372.jpg)
Their curses were not aimed at any definite target: they swore at such abstractions as God, the Officers, the Mothers of Others, with more music than meaning.
![Because happiness was temporal, individual, in exceptional circumstances twofold, on extremely rare occasions tripartite, and never collective, civic.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/mario-vargas-llosa-35371.jpg)
Because happiness was temporal, individual, in exceptional circumstances twofold, on extremely rare occasions tripartite, and never collective, civic.