The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be...

Because of literature we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings.

«En lo que se refiere a Dios hay que creer, no razonar», decía Herbert. «Si razonas, Dios se esfuma como una bocanada de humo.»

Living is worth the effort if only because without life we could not read or imagine stories.

Honor, vengeance, that rigorous religion, those punctilicious codes of conduct – how to explain their existence here, at the end of the world, among people who possessed nothing but the rags and the lice they...

Ce-mi place mie este să citesc romanele, nu să le fac autopsia.

No me preguntes por qué, porque ni muerta te lo voy a decir. Nunca te voy a decir que te quiero aunque te quiera.

One can’t fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.

The search for liberty is simply part of the greater search for a world where respect for the rule of law and human rights is universal—a world free of dictators, terrorists, warmongers and fanatics, where...

Whether religious or racial, anti-Semitism is always repugnant, one of the most destructive manifestations of human stupidity and evil. What is profoundly expressed in it is man’s traditional mistrust of the man who is not...

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.

The secret to happiness, at least to peace of mind, is knowing how to separate sex from love. And, if possible, eliminating romantic love from your life, which is the love that makes you suffer....

Lo injusta que es a veces la suerte con los artistas que sueñan con encontrar el Paraíso en este terrenal valle de lágrimas.

We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing,...

It is the case that, albeit to a lesser extent, all fictions make their readers live “the impossible”, taking them out of themselves, breaking down barriers, and making them share, by identifying with the characters...

Instead of speaking of justice and injustice, freedom and oppression, classless society and class society, they talked in terms of God and the Devil.

From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing...

writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible!

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...

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

‎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...

Una vida mental rica y propia exige curiosidad, malicia, fantasía y deseos insatisfechos, es decir, una mente «sucia», malos pensamientos, floración de imágenes prohibidas, apetitos que induzcan a explorar lo desconocido y a renovar lo...

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...

…escribir lo que no se había vivido, lo que sólo se había querido vivir, era también una manera —cobarde y tímida— de vivirlo…

We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.