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That Is One Thing I Am Sure Of Amid My Many Uncertainties Regarding The Literary Vocation: Deep Inside, A Writer Feels That Writing Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Him, Or Could Ever Happen To Him, Because As Far As He Is Concerned, Writing Is The Best Possible Way Of Life, Never Mind The Social, Political, Or Financial Rewards Of What He Might Achieve Through It.

-Mario Vargas Llosa

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That Is One Thing

Mario Vargas Llosa

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That Is One Thing I Am Sure Of Amid My Many Uncertainties Regarding The Literary Vocation: Deep Inside, A Writer Feels That Writing Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Him, Or Could Ever Happen To Him, Because As Far As He Is Concerned, Writing Is The Best Possible Way Of Life, Never Mind The Social, Political, Or Financial Rewards Of What He Might Achieve Through It.

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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.

Literature Is A Form Of Permanent Insurrection. Its Mission Is To Arouse, To Disturb, To Alarm, To Keep Men In A Constant State Of Dissatisfaction With Themselves.

Liberty Is Inseparable From Social Justice, And Those Who Dissociate Them, Sacrificing The First With The Purpose Of Attaining The Second More Quickly, Are The True Barbarians Of Our Time.

When I Was Young, When I Started To Write, We Were Totally Convinced That Literature Was A Kind Of Weapon.

Violence Represents The Worst Kind Of Conformism.

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 Part Of His Tribe, That 'other' Who Speaks A Different Language, Whose Skin Is A Different Color, And Who Participates In Mysterious Rites And Rituals.

I Always Write A Draft Version Of The Novel In Which I Try To Develop, Not The Story, Not The Plot, But The Possibilities Of The Plot. I Write Without Thinking Much, Trying To Overcome All Kinds Of Self-criticism, Without Stopping, Without Giving Any Consideration To The Style Or Structure Of The Novel, Only Putting Down On Paper Everything That Can Be Used As Raw Material, Very Crude Material For Later Development In The Story.

No Matter How Ephemeral It Is, A Novel Is Something, While Despair Is Nothing.

It Is Rare And Almost Impossible For A Novel To Have Only One Narrator.

The Secret To A Masterpiece Is 10 Percent Inspiration And 90 Percent Perspiration.

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