Vargas Quotes & Sayings

Nostalgia is cowardice — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Because in the civilization of the spectacle, intellectuals are of interest only if they play the fashion game and become clowns. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

We're way overdue on a woman sitting in one of those Big Three chairs. — Elizabeth Vargas

As a gay man, I think the role of culture is central to how you change politics - culture is politics. — Jose Antonio Vargas

You can't rely on the approval of others. I used to always look for praise from my directors to reassure myself that I was doing a good job. I don't do that anymore. — Jacob Vargas

A friend said to me I'm like a walking New Yorker article. It's true! That's how I write. That's how I think. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I've tried to meditate, but I feel like I always overthink the process. When I need to calm my mind, I will go for a family hike. — Jacob Vargas

I like Q&A's better than articles sometimes because I feel like I'd rather hear somebody actually talk or wrestle with ... — Jose Antonio Vargas

At the end of the day, stories connect us, not politics. And there's so many stories out there waiting to be told. It's just a matter of who's out there listening. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I can't marry my way into citizenship like straight people can. I can get married in the state of New York where I live, but because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government, which hands out visas, won't recognize my marriage. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I worked in three local news markets and in every single one of them, they said: 'You're a lousy anchor. We would love to renew your contract and have you be our lead reporter here, but we're not going to have you anchor.' — Elizabeth Vargas

Jesus kinda fools around and gives you parables. He doesn't oftentimes say exactly what he means. But in Matthew 25, he's very, very clear. And he delineates what it takes to get into the Kingdom of Heaven very, very clearly. And he says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that's how you treat Him. — Juan Vargas

I found out that I was illegal when I was 16. I'm gay. I'm Filipino. — Jose Antonio Vargas

This definition was not just limited to establishing a method for exploring the specificity of one human group in relation to another. It also desired, from the outset, to renounce the prejudiced and racist ethnography about which the West has never tired of berating itself. The intention could not have been loftier, but the well-known saying tells us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I am undoubtedly one of the more, if not the most, privileged undocumented immigrants in America. And for us at Define American, which is this culture campaign group that I founded with some friends, culture trumps politics. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I think everyone deserves dignity. — Jose Antonio Vargas

People always think that they'll never break. They'll never give in, CIA operatives somehow crack, but not them — Kitty Thomas

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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

Until then he had believed they justified colonialism: Christianity, civilization, and commerce. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Undocumented people get arrested all the time. I get arrested, and it's front-page news. I feel guilt. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Don't be afraid Mr. Onaka, we need you because none of us drives.
Can you imagine anything as dumb as that? They were going to make a revolution and they didn't even know how to drive a car. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

A good novel is a conjunction of many factors, the main of which is without a doubt, hard work. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I'm not a minority: I'm a majority of one. We all are. To call someone a minority, you give them baggage, of not being full, or not being seen as full. All of us need to be seen as full human beings. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I am a friend of life, at 80 life tells me to behave like a woman and not like an old woman. — Chavela Vargas

I told myself that in the country of my birth, from which I was disengaged in an increasingly irreversible way, there undoubtedly were many men and women like him, basically decent people who had dreamed all their lives of the economic, social, cultural, and political progress that would transform Peru into a modern, prosperous, democratic society with opportunities open to all, only to find themselves repeatedly frustrated, and, like Uncle Ataulfo, had reached old age - the very brink of death - bewildered, asking themselves why we were moving backward instead of advancing and were worse off now with more discrimination, inequality, violence, and insecurity than when they were starting out — Edith Grossman

I think the hardest stories we tell are always the ones about ourselves. And as a journalist, I was taught that I'm never supposed to put myself in the story. So I spent what, 11, 12 years of my life writing about other people so I don't have to face my own life. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Only Noelia Vargas Vargas knew how to see me in this life. And now I have no way of knowing how much of me existed only by virtue of her gaze. — Laia Jufresa

Why did you spend your whole life working in an insurance company? You should have been a painter, a musician, well, I don't know. Why didn't you follow your calling?"

Don Rigoberto nodded and reflected a moment before answering.

"Because I was a coward, son," he finally murmured. "Because I lacked faith in myself. I never believed I had the talent to be a real artist. But maybe that was an excuse for not trying. I decided not to be a creator but only a consumer of art, a dilettante of culture. Because I was a coward is the sad truth. So now you know. Don't follow my example. Whatever your calling is, follow it as far as you can and don't do what I did, don't betray it. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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

Of all the questions I get asked as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, there are two - asked in various permutations via email, social media or in person - that chill me to the bone: 'Why don't you just make yourself legal?' And: 'Why don't you get in the back of the line?' — Jose Antonio Vargas

I look at emotional pain as something we need to go through in order to grow and learn. — Jacob Vargas

The world of fantasy fills the gaps in people's knowledge. — Fred Vargas

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I don't have a set routine, but I try to squeeze in a workout every day, whether it's taking a hike, taking a Pilates class, or just putting in a workout DVD. Whatever it takes! — Jacob Vargas

In 2007, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would become a 'platform,' meaning that outside developers could start creating applications that would run inside the site. It worked. — Jose Antonio Vargas

In matters concerning God, you have to believe, not reason," Herbert would say. "If you reason, God vanishes like a mouthful of smoke." Roger — Mario Vargas-Llosa

He undressed and, wearing slippers and a robe, went to the bathroom to shave. He turned on the radio. They read the newspapers on the Dominican Voice and Caribbean Radio. Until a few years ago the news bulletins had begun at five. But when his brother Petan, the owner of the Dominican Voice, found out that he woke at four, he moved the newscasts up an hour. The other stations followed suit. They knew he listened to the radio while he shaved, bathed, and dressed, and they were painstakingly careful. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

And yet, my dear Estela, in the end one accepts the will of God, resigns oneself, and discovers that, even with all its calvaries, life is full of beautiful things. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

To me, politics is culture. I became a journalist, and later a filmmaker, to get to know my new country and my volatile place in it as a gay, undocumented Filipino-American. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I worked for 'The Chronicle' in San Francisco, and immigration is a big issue in that region. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Each drop of my blood will be an immortal flame in your conscience and will uphold the sacred will to resist. To hatred I reply with pardon, and to those who think they have defeated me, I reply with my victory. I was a slave to the Brazilian people, and today I am freeing myself for eternal life. But this people, whose slave I was, will no longer be slave to anyone. My sacrifice will remain forever in their souls and my blood will be the price for their ransom. I fought against the exploitation of Brazil. I fought against the exploitation of her people. I have fought with my whole heart. Hatred, infamy and slander have not conquered my spirit.I have given you my life. Now I offer you my death. I fear nothing. Serenely I take my first step towards eternity and leave life to enter history. — Getulio Vargas

The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about ... ?" — Jose Antonio Vargas

But it (serial television) doesn't remain in the mind. It doesn't produce positive effects in political terms, in ideological terms. My impression is that this extraordinary digital revolution is producing also an extraordinary confusion. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Journalism is a way of voicing opinion, of participating in the political, social, or cultural debate. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

they knew what we're doing for them, they'd kiss our feet. But mentally they are closer to the crocodile and the hippopotamus than to you or me. That's why we decide what is good for them and have them sign those contracts. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life — Mario Vargas-Llosa

When you're undocumented, you're supposed to keep your head down and be quiet and pay taxes, social security - even though people don't know that we do those things - and not say anything. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm going to give Vargas the chance to cash his last paycheck. I would like to say publicly that Fatty Vargas has always feared me. I conceded to take this fight at 162 pounds because fatty couldn't lose any more weight. I will do Vargas a favor by retiring him in this fight so his family doesn't have to suffer every time he steps in the ring. I'm going to do his wife a favor and not let her cry anymore. — Ricardo Mayorga

When it comes to mountains there are two kinds of people; those who walk half way up & quit & those who conquer it which one are you? — Ricardo Viana Vargas

When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people. — Jose Antonio Vargas

The world's full of details, have you noticed? And since no detail is ever repeated in exactly the same shape and always sets off other details, there's no end to it. — Fred Vargas

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 ... — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I guess, as a reporter, I always thought that my biggest strength was that I could get anybody to talk to me. I wasn't the best writer, but I could get people to talk to me. — Jose Antonio Vargas

It's beautiful, as long as you concentrate on the landscape and the birds, because everything man-made there is ugly. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

We cannot change the politics issue until we change the culture around it; until we talk about what parents do for their kids as an act of love. That's a cultural conversation. — Jose Antonio Vargas

One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby DMV office to get my driver's permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. 'This is fake,' she whispered. 'Don't come back here again.' — Jose Antonio Vargas

Facebook's privacy policies are confusing to many people, and the company has changed them frequently, almost always allowing more information to be exposed in more ways. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Nothing to say. I used to be a ghostwriter for a publisher.'
'Medieval stuff?'
'Eighty-page love stories. You have this guy, untrustworthy but good in bed, and this girl, radiant but innocent. In the end they fall madly in love and it's incredibly boring. The story doesn't say when they split up.'
'Of course not,' said Mathias — Fred Vargas

I consider myself a student of life. — Jacob Vargas

I was falling in love.
I am losing my father.
With Emilio Vargas.
To smoke and shadow.
My heart fluttered.
My heart aches.
To feel it.
To deny it.
Life.
Death.
Possibilities.
Endings — Sarah Ockler

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

The film 'Documented,' a project of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Define American campaign, is about my families: the family I was blessed to be born into, and the family of friends, mentors and allies that I found when I moved to the United States at 12, a Filipino kid trying to make sense of my new home in America. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Frida Kahlo taught me a lot without ever bragging about anything. — Chavela Vargas

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

For now, for this year, I need to be a good mother. — Elizabeth Vargas

As everybody in the Andes knows, when the devil comes to work his evil on earth he sometimes takes the shape of a limping gringo stranger. And — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Frank will be okay, Alice," Mr. Vargas said. "He's an odd duck, but brilliant children often are. I make myself out to be," he said. "I'm worried, yes. But I'd worry more if she didn't have Frank. She's all he got, and she knows it. — Julia Claiborne Johnson

Independent of politics, the changing narrative on immigration is directly correlated to the fact that we have new technologies that are allowing people to talk to each other and tell their own stories and organize themselves. — Jose Antonio Vargas

The more successful I got, the more scared I got. My name was all over Google. I had a Wikipedia page I was terrified to look at. And so I just snapped. I thought, 'If I'm going to come out with this, I'm going to do it in a big way. And not just for myself. This can't just be my story.' — Jose Antonio Vargas

And I try sweeping it all one side — Yesenia Vargas

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I am not a lobbyist. I am not a political activist. I am not a leader, as far as I'm concerned. — Jose Antonio Vargas

This fact was something I also learned from this first novel that I needed personal experience to invent, to fantasize, to create fiction, but at the same time I needed some distance, some perspective on this experience in order to feel free enough to manipulate it and to transform it into fiction. If the experience is very close, I feel inhibited. I have never been able to write fiction about something that has happened to me recently. If the closeness of the real reality, of living reality, is to have a persuasive effect on my imagination, I need a distance, a distance in time and in space. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

In the civilization of our times, it is normal, and almost obligatory, for cookery and fashion to take up most of the culture sections, for chefs and fashion designers now enjoy the prominence that before was given to scientists, composers and philosophers. Gas burners, stoves and catwalks meld, in the cultural coordinates of our time, with books, laboratories and operas, while TV stars and great footballers exert the sort of influence over habits, taste and fashion that was previously the domain of teachers and thinkers — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I was never afraid of anything because I never hurt anyone. I was always an old drunk.
[Mexico City concert, June 2011] — Chavela Vargas

Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Fiction is a lie covering up a deep truth. — Maria Vargas Llosa

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella.
(spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa) — Mario Vargas-Llosa

A lot of our so-called Latino leaders are gutless. I talk to these cry-baby Latino leaders, and they say they can't win elections until Latinos are a majority. — Juan Vargas

People don't really assume that I'm Filipino. Of course, they're gonna think, 'Oh, are you some sort of Hispanic?' and you say, 'No, I'm actually not.' I get Korean or Chinese a lot. — Jose Antonio Vargas

This "manna from heaven" was being squandered because of the laziness and stupidity of the savages who refused to work as harvesters of latex and obliged the planters to go to the tribes and take them by force. Which meant a great loss of time and money for the enterprises. "Well, — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I've been uncomfortable dealing with my identity since I was 16 years old. — Jose Antonio Vargas

I did not realize how broken I was until I saw how broken Mama was. — Jose Antonio Vargas

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

It is not bad that the main beneficiaries of freedom criticize open societies, where there is much that can be criticized. It is bad if they do so by taking the side of those who seek to destroy these open societies, replacing them with authoritarian regimes, as in Venezuela or Cuba. When many artists and intellectuals betray democratic ideals, they are not betraying abstract principles, but rather the thousands and millions of flesh-and-blood people who, under dictatorships, resist and fight to gain freedom. But the saddest thing is that this betrayal of the victims does not come from principles and convictions but rather from professional opportunism and posturing, gestures and actions adapted to circumstance. Many artists and intellectuals in our times have become very cheap. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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 — Mario Vargas-Llosa

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. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I have a chest full of all the insults, villainies, and infamies a man is capable of withstanding ... If you become famous, you will have to go through that. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

I grew up in newsrooms. I've been in newsrooms since I was 17 years old. Journalism has been like my church; it's been like my identity. — Jose Antonio Vargas

While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local YMCA, then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at 'The Mountain View Voice,' my hometown newspaper. — Jose Antonio Vargas

For Filipino Americans, it's a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized 'other.' — Jose Antonio Vargas

Probably there are no longer any societies in which the best people are attracted to civic duties. — Mario Vargas-Llosa