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And The Truth Is That If A Writer Is Successful, You Gain Readers. It Benefits All The Writers. It's Important For All The Writers That As Many Of Us As Possible Be Successful.

-Isabel Allende

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And The Truth Is

Isabel Allende

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And The Truth Is That If A Writer Is Successful, You Gain Readers. It Benefits All The Writers. It's Important For All The Writers That As Many Of Us As Possible Be Successful.

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After A Few Months Without Writing, Months I've Lived Turned Outward... I Fear Going Deaf, Not Being Able To Hear The Silence.

I Have A Hundred-year-old Aunt Who Aspires To Sainthood, And Whose Only Wish Has Been To Go Into The Convent, But No Congregation, Not Even The Little Sisters Of Charity, Could Tolerate Her For More Than A Few Weeks, So The Family Has Had To Look After Her. Believe Me, There Is Nothing So Insufferable As A Saint, I Wouldn't Sic One On My Worst Enemy.

I Get Hundreds Of Emails Daily And A Lot Of Feedback From People That Are Reading Or Have Read My Books. When I'm Writing, Or In My Daily Life, I Just Think Of The Work. I Love To Tell A Story, But I Might Work With A Story To Make It The Best I Can Without Thinking Of How Many People Will Read It Or If It Will Influence Anybody.

When Love Exists, Nothing Else Matters, Not Life’s Predicaments, Not The Fury Of The Years, Not A Physical Winding Down Or Scarcity Of Opportunity.

You Are The Storyteller Of Your Own Life, And You Can Create Your Own Legend, Or Not.

She Intended To Swallow The World And He Lived Crushed By Reality.

My Father Says That Fear Is Good; It's The Body's Alarm System, It Warns Us Of Danger. But Sometimes Danger Can't Be Avoided, And Then You Have To Forget About Being Afraid.

I Try Desperately To Conquer The Transitory Nature Of My Existence, To Trap Moments Before They Evenesce, To Untangle The Confusion Of My Past. Every Instant Disappears In A Breath And Immediately Becomes The Past; Reality Is Ephemeral And Changing, Pure Longing.

Until A Few Months Ago We Had A Code Of Honor, And Even The Worst Ruffians Behaved With Decency. You Could Leave Your Gold In A Tent With No Guard And No One Would Touch It, But Now All That Has Changed. The Law Of The Jungle Rules, The Only Ideology Is Greed. Don't Let Yourself Be Parted From Your Weapons, And Always Travel In Pairs Or Groups, Because This Is A Land Of Thieves.

People Are Afraid Of Falling In Love Because They Don't Want To Suffer.

Falling In Love

The Last Time I Was In Chile, I Was Hypnotized By A Friend Who Is Studying To Be A Curandero, A Healer, Who Led Me Back Through Several Incarnations. It Wasn't Easy To Return To The Present, However, Since My Friend Hadn't Reached That Part Of The Course, But The Experiment Was Well Worth The Effort Because I Discovered That In Former Lives I Was Not Genghis Khan, As My Mother Believes.

I Was A Lousy Journalist. I Could Never Be Objective. Sometimes I Invented The Whole Story.

I Would Like To Be With My Husband Together Sitting Somewhere In A Lonely Place In The Woods And Take Something, Maybe Some Pills Or Something, A Magic Potion And Die Together.

I Come From The So-called Third World (what Is The Second)?

I Don't Think That We Have To Look Like The Models In The Magazines Because They Are 19 Year Olds And They Have Been Photo Shopped Extensively, Not But Given What I, We Have As The Raw Material, Take Care Of It.

I Don't Think Of Literature As An End In Itself. It's Just A Way Of Communicating Something.

I Was A Very Bad Journalist. Awful. I Would Just Invent Everything. If I Did An Interview, I Had A Preconception Of What That Person Should Say And I Would Put My Words In His Mouth.

Land Is Something One Should Never Sell. It Is The Only Thing Left When All Else Is Gone

There Is No Death, Daughter. People Die Only When We Forget Them,' My Mother Explained Shortly Before She Left Me. 'if You Can Remember Me, I Will Be With You Always.

Empowering Women Means Trusting Them.

Empowering Women

Someone Has Said That Conversation Is Sex For The Soul.

Society Decides When We Get Old. But The Spirit Never Ages.

We Need A Global Approach To This From All Sides. We Need To Educate People, We Need The Scientists To Create New Technologies, We Need The Engineers To Create The Networks, We Need Every Human Being To Be Aware Of How Precious Water Is And Save It. Everybody Has To Be Involved In A Very Firm And Assertive Way.

She Was One Of Those People Who Was Born For The Greatness Of A Single Love, For Exaggerated Hatred, For Apocalyptic Vengance, And For The Most Sublime Forms Of Heroism But She Was Unable To Shape Her Fate To The Dimensions Of Her Amorous Vocation, So It Was Lived Out As Something Flat And Gray Trapped Between Her Mother's Sickroom Walls, Wretched Tenements, And The Tortured Confessions With Which This Large, Opulent, Hot-blooded Woman Made For Maternity, Abundance, Action, And Ardor- Was Consuming Herself.

When You Tell A Story In The Kitchen To A Friend, It's Full Of Mistakes And Repetitions. It's Good To Avoid That In Literature, But Still, A Story Should Feel Like A Conversation. It's Not A Lecture.

Sex Is The Instrument And Love The Music.

I Am Very Optimistic Because I Have Seen The Changes In My Lifetime. I Have Seen The World Change For The Better. We Always Think That Present Times Is Terrible, That What's Happening Today, It Was Never Worse, That The World Is Going In The Most Awful Direction. But I Think That The World That My Grandchildren Will Have Will Be Better Than The One I Had When I Turned 20.

The First Few Months Of My Life Of Every Year Are In Total Retreat. I Don't See Anybody Except My Husband And My Dog, I Don't Talk To Anybody, And I Just Write.

His Calls For Justice Were Lost At The Mercy Of The Wind And Human Indifference.

The Names Of Persons And Living Creatures Demand Respect, Because When We Speak To Them We Touch Their Heart And Become A Part Of Thier Life Force.

Every Time I Asked A Question, That Magnificent Teacher, Instead Of Giving The Answer, Showed Me How To Find It. She Taught Me To Organise My Thoughts, To Do Research, To Read And Listen, To Seek Alternatives, To Resolve Old Problems With New Solutions, To Argue Logically. Above All, She Taught Me Not To Believe Anything Blindly, To Doubt, And To Question Even What Seemed Irrefutably True, Such As Man's Superiority Over Woman, Or One Race Or Social Class Over Another.

We All Have An Unsuspected Reserve Of Strength Inside That Emerges When Life Puts Us To The Test.

I Went To A Mystery Writers Conference ... And I Learned A Lot Not Only From The Faculty - And In The Faculty We Had Forensic Doctors, Detectives, Policemen, Experts In Guns, Etc. - But From The Questions Of The Students.

The Slave Who Dances Is Free ... While He Is Dancing.

Boredom, Timothy Duane Assured Me, Is Nothing More Than Anger Without Passion.

A Novel Is Like A Window, Open To An Infinite Landscape.

The Idea Of The Book ["the Japanese Lover"] Came In A Conversation That I Had With A Friend Walking In The Streets Of New York. We Were Talking About Our Mothers, And I Was Telling Her How Old My Mother Was, And She Was Telling Me About Her Mother. Her Mother Was Jewish, And She Said That She Was In A Retirement Home And That She Had Had A Friend For 40 Years That Was A Japanese Gardener. This Person Had Been Very Important In My Friend's Upbringing.

The Fact People Think That When You Sell A Lot Of Books You Are Not A Serious Writer Is A Great Insult To The Readership. I Get A Little Angry When People Try To Say Such A Thing.

Barrabas Came To Us By The Sea.

My Writing Comes Not From The Happy Moments, But From Struggle And Grief.

As I Travel Through Life, I Gather Experiences That Lie Imprinted On The Deepest Strata Of Memory, And There They Ferment, Are Transformed, And Sometimes Rise To The Surface And Sprout Like Strange Plants From Other Worlds. What Is The Fertile Humus Of The Subconscious Composed Of? Why Are Certain Images Converted Into Recurrent Themes In Nightmares Or Writing?

Fiction Happens In The Womb. It Doesn't Get Processed In The Mind Until You Do The Editing.

Give, Give, Give - What Is The Point Of Having Experience, Knowledge Or Talent If I Don't Give It Away? Of Having Stories If I Don't Tell Them To Others? Of Having Wealth If I Don't Share It? I Don't Intend To Be Cremated With Any Of It! It Is In Giving That I Connect With Others, With The World And With The Divine.

We Want A World Where Life Is Preserved, And The Quality Of Life Is Enriched For Everybody, Not Only For The Privileged.

A Book Is Not An End In Itself; It Is Only A Way To Touch Someone - A Bridge Extended Across A Space Of Loneliness And Obscurity - And Sometimes It Is A Way Of Winning Other People To Our Causes.

I'm Such A Control Freak. I Want To Control Even My Own Death. Decide When I Will Die And How.

I've Been A Foreigner For The Past Twenty Years. I Don't Have Roots Anymore. My Roots Are In My Memory And My Writing. That's Why Memory Is So Important. Who Are You But What You Can Remember?

When I'm Scared - And I'm Always Scared When I Have To Face An Audience, When I Have To Read A Review, When I Publish A Book...then, I Think Of My Grandfather. My Grandfather Was This Strong, Tough Basque Who Would Never Bend....what Would He Do? Well, He Would Go Ahead, Close His Eyes, And Drive Forward. You Do It And The Spirit That Is Within You....is There.

I Don't Read Thrillers, Romance Or Mystery, And I Don't Read Self-help Books Because I Don't Believe In Shortcuts And Loopholes.

That Was A Good Time In My Life, In Spite Of Having The Sensation Of Floating On A Cloud, Surrounded By Both Lies And Things Left Unspoken. Occasionally I Thought I Glimpsed The Truth, But Soon Found Myself Once Again Lost In A Forest Of Ambiguities.

And The Truth Is That If A Writer Is Successful, You Gain Readers. It Benefits All The Writers. It's Important For All The Writers That As Many Of Us As Possible Be Successful.

Write To Register History, And Name Each Thing. Write What Should Not Be Forgotten.

Now Of Course We Have Black Historians, But They're Usually Men. We Get The Perspective Always, The Slanted Perspective, Of What Has Happened. The Battles, The Things Achieved, The Laws, But Where Are The People, The Families? What Happens Inside The Houses, Inside The Minds And The Hearts? That's What I'm Interested In.

Agosins Poetic Language Engages The Reader In A Mesmerizing Journey Of Inward Reflection And Exile.

In Times Of Conflict, War, Poverty Or Religious Fundamentalism, Women And Children Are The First And Most Numerous Victims. Women Need All Their Courage Today.

My Books Are Written From Personal Experience, From Memories, And From Stories That Come To Me From All Places.

The First Two, Three, Four Weeks Are Wasted. I Just Show Up In Front Of The Computer. Show Up, Show Up, Show Up, And After A While The Muse Shows Up, Too. If She Doesn't Show Up Invited, Eventually She Just Shows Up.

Peace Requires Everyone To Be In The Circle - Wholeness, Inclusion.

It Is Common Knowledge That No Man That Women Flock To Boasts Of His Conquests. Those Who Do, Lie.

Silence Before Being Born, Silence After Death: Life Is Nothing But Noise Between Two Unfathomable Silences.

Writing Is Like Making Love. Don't Worry About The Orgasm, Just Concentrate On The Process.

I Was Not Supposed To Be In Any Way A Liberated Person. I Was A Female Born In The '40s In A Patriarchal Family; I Was Supposed To Marry And Make Everyone Around Me Happy.

Accept The Children The Way We Accept Trees—with Gratitude, Because They Are A Blessing—but Do Not Have Expectations Or Desires. You Don’t Expect Trees To Change, You Love Them As They Are.

Unconditional Love

He Was Not Oppressed By A Crowd Because In The Midst Of All The Hullabaloo He Always Found A Quiet Place For His Soul.

When You Make An Omelet, As When You Make Love, Affection Counts For More Than Technique.

We Only Have What We Give.

Literary Characters, Like My Grandmother's Apparitions, Are Fragile Beings, Easily Frightened; They Must Be Treated With Care So They Will Feel Comfortable In My Pages

True Friendship Resists Time, Distance And Silence.

A Man Does What He Can; A Woman Does What A Man Cannot.

With Women The Best Aphrodisiac Is Words.

For Real Change, We Need Feminine Energy In The Management Of The World. We Need A Critical Number Of Women In Positions Of Power, And We Need To Nurture The Feminine Energy In Men.

You Only Have What You Give. It’s By Spending Yourself That You Become Rich.

Erotica Is Using A Feather; Pornograpy Is Using The Whole Chicken.

I'm Not A Fan Of Mysteries, So To Prepare For This Experience Of Writing A Mystery I Started Reading The Most Successful Ones In The Market In 2012. And I Realized I Cannot Write That Kind Of Book. It's Too Gruesome, Too Violent, Too Dark; There's No Redemption There.

That Is The Best Part Of Writing: Finding The Hidden Treasures, Giving Sparkle To Worn Out Events, Invigorating The Tired Soul With Imagination, Creating Some Kind Of Truth With Many Lies.

I Learned Very Quickly That When You Emigrate, You Lose The Crutches That Have Been Your Support; You Must Begin From Zero, Because The Past Is Erased With A Single Stroke And No One Cares Where You’re From Or What You Did Before.

I Seek Truth And Beauty In The Transparency Of An Autumn Leaf, In The Perfect Form Of A Seashell On The Beach, In The Curve Of A Woman's Back, In The Texture Of An Ancient Tree Trunk, But Also In The Elusive Forms Of Reality.

I Think The Spirit Survives When We Die, And Nothing Is Wasted In Nature And Just As Our Material Body Disintegrates And Becomes Something Else In The Soil. The Spirit Becomes Something Else, Reunites With A Spiritual Force That Is Out There In The Universe. Not As Individuals But As Part Of This Spirituality.

The Longer I Live, The More Uninformed I Feel. Only The Young Have An Explanation For Everything.

I Was Such A Sullen, Angry, Sad Kid. I'm Sure There Are Writers Who Have Had Happy Childhoods, But What Are You Going To Write About? No Ghosts, No Fear. I'm Very Happy That I Had An Unhappy And Uncomfortable Childhood.

What Happens In The World Affects Me. Sometimes, That's Part Of The Writing.

Remember That All The Others Are More Afraid Than You

My Grandfather Was Dying, And Told The Family He Had Decided To Die. ... At That Moment I Wanted So Badly To Write And Tell Him That He Was Never Going To Die, That Somehow He Would Always Be Present In My Life, Because He Had A Theory That Death Didn't Exist, Only Forgetfulness Did. He Believed That If You Can Keep People In Your Memory, They Will Live Forever. That's What He Did With My Grandmother.

So Firm Did Nivea's Determination Become That She Wrote In Her Diary That She Would Give Up Marriage In Order To Devote Herself Completely To The Struggle For Women's Suffrage. She Was Not Aware That Such A Sacrifice Would Not Be Necessary, And That She Would Marry A Man For Love Who Would Back Her Up In Her Political Goals.

My Worst Flaw Is That I Tell Secrets, My Own And Everybody Else's.

In Terrible Moments, In Moments Of Revolution, Of War Or Repression, Of Illness Or Death, People React With Incredible Strength.

I Began To Wonder Whether Anything Truly Existed, Whether Reality Wasn't An Unformed And Gelatinous Substance Only Half-captured By My Senses....if That Were True, Each Of Us Was Living In Absolute Isolation. The Thought Terrified Me. I Was Consoled By The Idea That I Could Take That Gelatin And Mold It To Create Anything I Wanted...at Times I Felt That The Universe Fabricated From The Power Of The Imagination Had Stronger And More Lasting Contours Than The Blurred Realm Of The Flesh-and-blood Creatures Around Me.

All Stories Interest Me, And Some Haunt Me Until I End Up Writing Them.

I Felt An Unrelenting Restlessness. It Was The First Time I Had Ever Experienced Jealousy, And That Emotion Clung To My Skin Day And Night Like A Dark Stain, A Contamination I Could Not Shed; It Became So Unbearable That When Finally I Rid Myself Of It, I Was Freed Forever Of The Desire To Possess Another Person Or The Temptation Ever To Belong To Anyone.

Americans Have A Warrior's Mentality, Most Of Them. That's How This Society Was Built. The Fact That You Own A Gun And Shoot To Defend Your Life Is A Very American Way Of Thinking.

One Of The Things That Always Comes Up In My Writing Is The Search For Freedom, Especially In Women. I Always Write About Women Who Are Marginalized, Who Have No Means Or Resources And Somehow Manage To Get Out Of Those Situations With Incredible Strength - And That Is More Important Than Anything.

For Women, The Best Aphrodisiacs Are Words. The G-spot Is In The Ears. He Who Looks For It Below There Is Wasting His Time.

It's Good For A Writer To Come From Journalism Because It Gives You The Tools. A Journalist Knows That He Or She Can Lose The Reader In Six Lines, So Try To Keep The Attention Of The Reader. Also, You Learn To Research, And To Conduct An Interview - To Extract From The Person Whatever You Need From That Person.

If You Write Nonfiction, A Historical Account Of What Really Happened, First Of All, It's Always White Men Who Do That And You Don't Have The Voices That Are Really Interesting To Me, Of The People Who Are Not Sheltered By The Big Umbrella Of The Establishment.

Women Age More In Company Because They Have More Relationships. Men Have Buddies. They Have Acquaintances, They Have Comrades. Friends As Women Have, The Friends That Of The Soul That You Share Everything, That You Witness Each Other's Lives, That You Talk Their, Your, Heart Out, That You Cry With, That You Ask Money When You Need, That.

It Is A Wonderful Truth That Things We Want Most In Life-a Sense Of Purpose, Happiness And Hope-are Most Easily Attained By Giving Them To Others.

There's Basically An Element Of Fiction In Everything You Remember. Imagination And Memory Are Almost The Same Brain Processes. When I Write Fiction, I Know That I'm Using A Bunch Of Lies That I've Made Up To Create Some Form Of Truth. When I Write A Memoir, I'm Using True Elements To Create Something That Will Always Be Somehow Fictionalized.

Most People Feel Younger Than Their Age, But The Culture Values Youth, Success, Beauty, Productivity. There Is No Space In This Culture For Older People.

I Like Historical Fiction. I Fell In Love With New Orleans The First Time I Visited It. And I Wanted To Place A Story In New Orleans.

If, For Example, I Saw My Grandparents Or My Daughter For An Instant, Would I Recognize Them? Probably Not, Because In Looking So Hard For A Way To Keep Them Alive, Remembering Them In The Most Minimal Details, I Have Been Changing Them, Adorning Them With Qualities They May Not Have Had. I Have Given Them A Destiny Much More Complex Than The Ones They Lived.

I Write To Understand My Circumstances, To Sort Out The Confusion Of Reality, To Exorcise My Demons. But Most Of All, I Write Because I Love It!

The Source Of My Difficulties Has Always Been The Same: An Inability To Accept What To Others Seems Natural, And An Irresistible Tendency To Voice Opinions No One Wants To Hear . . .

In The United States, The Fact That You Can Start Again Gives A Lot Of Energy And Strength And Youth To This Country. That Is Why It's So Powerful In Many Ways, And So Creative.

I Think That My Life Changed At 50. Many Things Happened. Menopause, The End Of Youth And My Daughter Died That Year After Being A Whole Year In A Coma. So I Think That I Changed And I Became An Elder At 50.

Words Are Not That Important When You Recognize Intentions.

The Connection That I Have With My Readers Makes Me Very Happy, And Gives Meaning To The Strange Profession Of Writing

If You Change The Way You Tell Your Own Story, You Can Change The Colour And Create A Life In Technicolour.

Fear Is Like A Black Cavern That Is Terrifying. Once You Enter The Cavern And Explore It, You Realize That You Can Get Out Of It, Go Through It And Get Out Of It. Then There's Another Cavern That Is Just As Big And Terrifying, And You Just Go In And Dwell In It And See What Is The Worst That Can Happen.

I Don't Want Posterity, I Don't Want Anybody To Remember Me In Any Way. I Don't Care About That Because I'll Be Dead. I Think The Spirit Will Move To Some Other State.

At Times I Felt That The Universe Fabricated From The Power Of The Imagination Had Stronger And More Lasting Contours Than The Blurred Realm Of The Flesh-and-blood Creatures Around Me.

Aphrodite Is About Lust And Gluttony - The Only Two Sins Worth Committing, In My Opinion.

In My Book Tours I Get To Meet An Audience Every Night. And I See That There Are Mostly Young People, And There Are A Lot Of More Men Than Before, But Always Young, I Don't Get Older Men. As I'm Getting Older, My Audience Gets Younger!

Write What Should Not Be Forgotten.

Life Is Very Mysterious And There Are Many Things We Don't Know. And There Are Elements Of Magic Realism In Every Culture, Everywhere. It's Just Accepting That We Don't Know Everything And Everything Is Possible.

Sometimes Journalists Ask Me, "what's The Message?" There Is No Message. I Think That Fiction Should Not Be Trying To Give Messages. Just Tell A Story.

I Do Not Put Myself In A Box And Say, For Instance, I'm Writing Post-colonial Literature. I Don't Know What I'm Writing. That's The Business Of Professors And Critics. My Job Is To Tell A Story, And That's It.

I'm Living In California But I Have A Place That Is Mine In Chile And I Belong There. I Am No Longer An Exile.

Roots Are Not In Landscape Or A Country, Or A People, They Are Inside You.

Sisters: Talk To Each Other, Be Connected And Informed, Form Women's Circles, Share Your Stories, Work Together, And Take Risks. Together We Are Invincible.

Some People Connect With A Story And May Find Between The Lines Something That Might Be Useful To Him Or Her, But That's Not The Intention Of The Author, I Think. At Least Not Mine.

His Lifetime Was Less Than A Fraction Of A Second In Infinity. Or Maybe He Did Not Even Exist; Maybe Human Beings, The Planets, Everything In Creation Were A Dream...an Illusion. He Smiled With Humility When He Remembered.

Cooking Can Be Like Foreplay.

Heart Is What Drives Us And Determines Our Fate. That Is What I Need For My Characters In My Books: A Passionate Heart. I Need Mavericks, Dissidents, Adventurers, Outsiders And Rebels, Who Ask Questions, Bend The Rules And Take Risks.

If I Didn't Write My Soul Would Dry Up And Die.

We Have All The Technology To Record Things In The Streets. Now The Historians Cannot Twist It Or Change It, Because We Have Cellular Phones Or Video Cameras, And We Are Filming In The Streets What's Going On. We Have The Voices Of Everybody Recorded. There's Too Much Recording And I Think That's Wonderful.

I Need To Remember To Overcome.

She Regretted Nothing She Had Shared With Her Lover, Nor Was She Ashamed Of The Fires That Had Changed Her Life; Just The Opposite, She Felt That They Had Tempered Her, Made Her Strong, Given Her Pride In Making Decisions And Paying The Consequences For Them.

Catholics Form A Majority In Chile, Although There Are More And More Evangelicals And Pentacostals Who Irritate Everyone Because They Have A Direct Understanding With God While Everyone Else Must Pass Through The Priestly Bureaucracy.

Nothing Changes; We Humans Repeat The Same Sins Over And Over, Eternally.

We Only Appreciate What We Have When We Lose It.

You Spend The First Part Of Your Life Collecting Things ... And The Second Half Getting Rid Of Them.

Collecting Things

My Female Protagonist Will Not Be This Promiscuous, Beautiful, Dark-haired, Thin Lady. It Will Be A Plump, Blond, Healer And So Forth.

A Memoir Forces Me To Stop And Remember Carefully. It Is An Exercise In Truth. In A Memoir, I Look At Myself, My Life, And The People I Love The Most In The Mirror Of The Blank Screen. In A Memoir, Feelings Are More Important Than Facts, And To Write Honestly, I Have To Confront My Demons.

Although Women Do Two-thirds Of The World's Labor, They Own Less Than One Percent Of The World's Assets.

We Don't Even Know How Strong We Are Until We Are Forced To Bring That Hidden Strength Forward. In Times Of Tragedy, Of War, Of Necessity, People Do Amazing Things. The Human Capacity For Survival And Renewal Is Awesome.

Nice People With Common Sense Do Not Make Interesting Characters. They Only Make Good Former Spouses.

Write With Honesty And Don't Worry About The Feelings Of Others, Because No Matter What You Say, They'll Hate You Anyway.

Fiction Happens In The Belly, It Doesn't Happen In The Brain.

Women Are The Only Ones Who Will Be Able To Eliminate The Patriarchy, And When That Happens All Of Us Will Win, Men As Much As Women.

Women Have Always Been Courageous... They Are Always Fearless When Protecting Their Children And In The Last Century They Have Been Fearless In The Fight For Their Rights.

What I Fear Most Is Power With Impunity. I Fear Abuse Of Power, And The Power To Abuse.

Writing Is My Job. I Don't Think Of It As Art.

My Husband, Who Is A Lawyer, Is Very Careful With Words And With The Truth. He Thinks That The Truth Exists, And It's Something That Is Beyond Questioning, Which I Think Is Totally Absurd. I Have Several Versions Of How We Met And How Wonderful He Was And All That. At Least Twenty. And I'm Sure That They Are All True. He Has One. And I'm Positive That It's Not True.

In Venezuela, When I Was Living There, Crime Was Growing. You Couldn't Feel Safe Anywhere. You Couldn't Leave Your Car In The Street Because It Would Be Stolen. You Coun't Live In Your House If You Didn't Have A High-security Alarm System, Because You Would Be Burglarized Seven Times A Week.

I'm Open To Love, And I Think That I Will Fall In Love With A Wonderful Man.

Falling In Love

Humanity Has This Need To Hear Stories Because They Connect Us With Other People, They Teach Us About Our Own Feelings. We Feel Less Lonely When We See Other People Going Through The Same Things, Even If They're Fictional Characters.

Seated By Her Side In The Narrow Cabin, Pressing Cold Compresses To Her Forehead And Holding Her While She Vomited, He Felt Profoundly Happy.

The World Starts To Exist, For Americans, When We Are In Conflict With A Place. And Then All Of A Sudden, Afghanistan Pops Up On The Tv Screen And It Becomes A Place. And It Exists For Three Weeks And Then It Disappears Into Thin Air.

When I Write Fiction, I Never Try To Deliver A Message; I Just Want To Tell A Story. But I Admit That I Want The Story To Be Memorable And The Characters To Touch The Reader's Heart.

Today's Girls Are Tomorrow's Women - And Leaders.

January 8 Has Been A Lucky Day For Me. I Have Started All My Books On That Day, And All Of Them Have Been Well Received By The Readers. I Write Eight To Ten Hours A Day Until I Have A First Draft, Then I Can Relax A Little. I Am Very Disciplined. I Write In Silence And Solitude. I Light A Candle To Call Inspiration And The Muses, And I Surround Myself With Pictures Of The People I Love, Dead And Alive.

I Need To Tell A Story. It's An Obsession. Each Story Is A Seed Inside Of Me That Starts To Grow And Grow, Like A Tumor, And I Have To Deal With It Sooner Or Later.

My Son, The Holy Church Is On The Right, But Jesus Christ Was Always On The Left.

I Am Very Grateful For The Success, Because It Has Given Me The Freedom To Write Without Pressure, In My Own Way, And Has Enabled Me To Maintain My Family And Educate My Children And Grandchildren, As Well As To Create A Foundation To Empower Women And Girls.

How Many Times Have I Told You Not To Believe Everything You Hear? Seek Truth For Yourself.

Every Person Is Born With A Talent, And Happiness Depends On Discovering That Talent In Time.

There Is No Light Without Shadow, Just As There Is No Happiness Without Pain.

We Don't Have An Explanation For Everything That Happens. We Don't Control Almost Anything. And If We Are Not Open To That Mystery, Life Becomes So Small.

Love Is Music, And Sex Is Only The Instrument.

Youth Is Not A Period In Life But A State Of Mind.

This Is To Assuage Our Conscience, Darling" She Would Explain To Blanca. "but It Doesn't Help The Poor. They Don't Need Chartiy; They Need Justice.

Affection Is Like The Noonday Sun; It Does Not Need The Presence Of Another To Be Manifest.

My Life Is About Ups And Downs, Great Joys And Great Losses.

Feminism Is Dated? Yes, For Privileged Women Like My Daughter And All Of Us Here Today, But Not For Most Of Our Sisters In The Rest Of The World Who Are Still Forced Into Premature Marriage, Prostitution, Forced Labor - They Have Children That They Don't Want Or They Cannot Feed.

The Fact That I Am A Writer Comes From The Experience Of Being Cut Away From My Roots And Living In Venezuela, Where I Couldn't Find A Place For Myself, For Years And Years.

Eros Is Very Close To Death. And Both Things, In A Way, Balance Each Other.

I Am Happier When I Love Than When I Am Loved. I Adore My Husband, My Son, My Grandchildren, My Mother, My Dog, And Frankly, I Don't Know If They Even Like Me. But Who Cares? Loving Them Is My Joy.

...when Everything Else Fails, We Communicate In The Language Of The Stars

Each Of Us Chooses The Tone For Telling His Or Her Own Story. I Would Like To Choose The Durable Clarity Of A Platinum Print, But Nothing In My Destiny Possesses The Luminosity. I Live Among Diffuse Shadings, Veiled Mysteries, Uncertainties; The Tone Of Telling My Life Is Closer To That Of A Portrait In Sepia.

Only That, Nothing More - A Tiny Beam Of Light To Show Some Hidden Aspect Of Reality, To Help Decipher And Understand It And Thus To Initiate, If Possible, A Change In The Conscience Of Some Readers.

Everyone Is Born With Some Special Talent.

I Tend To See The Similarities In People And Not The Differences.

...memory Is Fragile And The Space Of A Single Life Is Brief, Passing So Quickly That We Never Get A Chance To See The Relationship Between Events; We Cannot Gauge The Consequences Of Our Acts, And We Believe In The Fiction Of Past, Present, And Future, But It May Also Be True That Everything Happens Simultaneously.

We Are Too Connected. There's Noise In Our Heads All The Time.

All Stories Interest Me, And Some Haunt Me Until I End Up Writing Them. Certain Themes Keep Coming Up: Justice, Loyalty, Violence, Death, Political And Social Issues, Freedom.

I Had A Very Rough Childhood And Not A Happy One And By Age 15 I Was An Old Person In Many Ways. I Knew That I Had To Take Care Of Myself, I Um And I Always Did.

They Could Not Understand The Advantage Of Living Contrary To Their Inclinations In This World In Order To Enjoy A Hypothetical Well-being In Another.

At My Age Days Dissolve Like Salt In Water; The Day's Gone And I Don't Even Know What I've Done With The Hours.

I'm An Expert. I Can Kill Anybody And Not Be Caught.

When My Daughter Paula Died, I Was In The Deepest Pain, And My Mother Said, "this Kind Of Sorrow Is Like A Long, Narrow, Dark Channel. You Have To Walk This Channel Alone And Be Sure That There Is Light At The Other Ending. Just Keep Walking."

How Can One Not Speak About War, Poverty, And Inequality When People Who Suffer From These Afflictions Don't Have A Voice To Speak?

I Don't Want To Be Looking Inside My Ego, My Stuff, My Achievements, My Me, Me, Me, Me, I Hate That Stuff. I Just Want To Be Out There Eh To The Last Day Of My Life Ah Interested In The World, In Causes, In Helping Other People. Um That Doesn't Mean That I Don't Have A Spiritual Practice, That I Don't Look At My Own Soul, That I Don't Prepare Myself For The That Transition That Death Is But I Cannot Sit In Meditation To Contemplate My Navel For The Rest Of My Life. That Would Be Boring For Me.

Just As When We Come Into The World, When We Die We Are Afraid Of The Unknown. But The Fear Is Something From Within Us That Has Nothing To Do With Reality. Dying Is Like Being Born: Just A Change.

He Had Only To Touch Me To Turn My Tears Into Sighs And My Anger To Desire. How Accomodating Love Is; It Forgives Everything.

The Two Moments Are Much Alike: Birth And Death Are Made Of The Same Fabric.

At My Age, People Prefer To Stay In A Relationship That Is Not Working. I Do Not Understand That. I Think It Takes A Lot Of Courage To Separate. But It Takes More Energy To Stay In Something That Is Not Working.

It Is Absurd To Imagine That Any Child Will Be Able To Earn A Living, Let Alone Contribute To Resolving Our World's Complex Problems, Without Knowing How To Read And Write. My Foundation Supports The National Writing Project So That Teachers Can Be More Effective In Their Efforts To Improve Literacy For All Students.

I Think I Was A Feminist Before The Word Was Invented.

From Journalism I Learned To Write Under Pressure, To Work With Deadlines, To Have Limited Space And Time, To Conduct And Interview, To Find Information, To Research, And Above All, To Use Language As Efficiently As Possible And To Remember Always That There Is A Reader Out There.

I Don't Want To Die In Pain Or In An Undignified Way, I Don't Want Any Of The People I Love To Die In, Die Painfully. But I'm Aware Of The Fact That They May Die Before I Do And I Have To Part With Them And Take The Loss. The Hardest Thing Of Love Is To Let Go. But I Think I Can Get Let Go Of Almost Anybody.

My Mum Said That As You Age You Have To Smell Good And Be Clean And Don't Hate Anybody Because That Makes You Older. Um I Don't Agree. I Think That Of Course You Have To Smell Good And Be Clean But There's Much More That You Have To Do. Don't Complain, Exercise, Be Be Strong, Um Work, Be Creative, Be Related To The World, Have Causes, Fight For Them Passionately. I Think All Those Things Are Important. I I'm Not Going To Give Up And Just Smell Good.

You Can't Find Someone Who Doesn't Want To Be Found.

I Was Born In Ancient Times, At The End Of The World, In A Patriarchal Catholic And Conservative Family. No Wonder That By Age Five I Was A Raging Feminist - Although The Term Had Not Reached Chile Yet, So Nobody Knew What The Heck Was Wrong With Me.

Friendship Is All About Trust And Sharing. Passionate And Romantic Love Is All About Sex And Emotions. You Have To Try To Combine Those, I Think. The Great Marriages, The Great Couples I Know, Have Both.

The One That Came Really Easy Was The Japanese Lover, Because He's Like A Ghost In The Book. He's Always In The Background Like A Spirit, Like A Shadow, Almost. There's A Very Delicate Line There.

I Love My Dog Unconditionally, But Never The Man I'm Sleeping With.

I Was Born In The Middle Of The Second World War When The United States Dropped Their Atomic Bombs In Hiroshima And Nagasaki, When Millions Of People Were Dying In Concentration Camps, When Half The Planet Were Colonies That Belonged To Empires. The Word Feminism Didn't Exist. And In My Lifetime I Have Seen All These Things Improved, Changed. We Are More Connected, More Informed. We Can Fight Against Stuff Together In Ways We Couldn't Before.

Hiroshima And Nagasaki

Wishes And Fears Are Illusions, Dil Bahadur, Not Realities. You Must Practice Detachment.

The Most Poor And Backward Areas In The World Are Those In Which Women Are Subjugated And Exploited. Improving The Situation Of The Woman Improves The Family, The Community, And By Extension The Whole Country.

Giving Women Education, Work, The Ability To Control Their Own Income, Inherit And Own Property, Benefits The Society. If A Woman Is Empowered, Her Children And Her Family Will Be Better Off. If Families Prosper, The Village Prospers, And Eventually So Does The Whole Country.

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