An intellectual’s weapon is writing, but sometimes people react as if it were a firearm. A writer can do a lot to change the situation, but as far as I know, no dictatorship has fallen because of a sonnet. – Mario Benedetti
I think the only positive thing that came from Uruguay’s dictatorship was the spread of Montevideo natives around the world, and I continued writing about them from my various places of exile. – Mario Benedetti
I believe life is a parenthesis between two nothings. I’m an atheist. I believe in a personal God, which is conscience, and that’s what we must be accountable to every day. – Mario Benedetti
The real influence on my work was reality, that of my country and Latin America in general. – Mario Benedetti
I do not write for the reader to come, but for him who is here, short of reading the text on my shoulder. – Mario Benedetti
When I have worries, fears or a love affair, I have the luck of being able to transform it into a poem. – Mario Benedetti
