Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no n… - Mario Vargas Llosa

We live in the civilization of the spectacle and the intellectuals and writers who are the most popular are almost never popular because of the originality of their ideas or the beauty of their creations, or, in any event, not just for intellectual, artistic, or literary reasons. They are popular above all else for their histrionic ability, the way in which they project their public image, their exhibitionism, their rudeness, their insolence, all that farcical and noisy dimension of public life that passes itself off as rebellion (but which, in fact, masks a complete conformism).

It is easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it.

[I]t is normal for outsiders to have a better understanding of what is happening inside dictatorial regimes, because censorship prevents those suffering under dictatorship from being fully aware of the situation in which they are living.