The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to be subsidized by the state. It leads to an intellectual and artistic castration.
Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual’s sovereignty.
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.
It isn’t true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
I convinced her that her first loyalty isn’t to other people, but to her own feelings.
A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work.
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.
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.
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.
If you are killed because you are a writer, that’s the maximum expression of respect, you know.
A novel which persuades us of its truth is true however full of lies it may be.
Violence represents the worst kind of conformism.
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.
North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.
Once upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of 5. This changed his life. Owing to the adventure tales he read, he discovered a way to escape from the poor house, the poor country, and the poor reality in which he lived.
In general, I think my freedom of invention is not limited when I use historical characters.
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.
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.
Journalism has been very important for me – for a long time I made my living as a journalist, and it also serves as a source of ideas. Many of the things I have written I would not have written without the experience of being a journalist.
Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate.