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

-Isabel Allende

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Fiction Happens In The

Isabel Allende

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

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

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

Far Away From My Country I Would Be Like Those Trees They Chop Down At Christmastime, Those Poor Rootless Pines That Last A Little While And Then Die.

Barrabas Came To Us By The Sea.

In My Lifetime, The World Has Become Better, Not Worse. And The World Is Moving, Very Slowly But Surely With More Democracy And More Liberal Way Of Thinking, More Inclusion And More Diversity.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Give, Give, Give-what Is The Point Of Having Experience, Knowledge Or Talent If I Don't Give It Away?

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.

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

The Most Savory Grape, The One That Produces The Wines With Best Texture And Aroma, The Sweetest And Most Generous, Doesn't Grow In Rich Soil But In Stony Land; The Plant, With A Mother's Obstinacy, Overcomes Obstacles To Thrust Its Roots Deep Into The Ground And Take Advantage Of Every Drop Of Water. That, My Grandmother Explained To Me, Is How Flavors Are Concentrated In The Grape.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

I Don't Think I Would Be A Writer If I Had Stayed In Chile. I Would Be Trapped In The Chores, In The Family, In The Person That People Expected Me To Be.

Reading Is Like Looking Through Several Windows Which Open To An Infinite Landscape....for Me Life Without Reading Would Be Like Being In Prison, It Would Be As If My Spirit Were In A Straightjacket; Life Would Be A Very Dark And Narrow Place.

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.

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.

The Fear Is Not Real, Dil Bahadur; It Is Only In Your Mind, Like All Other Things. Our Thoughts Form What We Believe To Be Reality.

I Don't Want An Uneventful And Safe Life, I Prefer An Adventurous One.

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

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.

She Never Imagined A Scenario In Which Her Love Was Not Returned With The Same Depth Of Feeling, For To Her It Was Impossible To Believe That A Love Of Such Magnitude Could Have Stunned Only Her. The Most Elementary Logic And Justice Indicated That Somewhere In The City He Was Suffering The Same Delicious Torment.

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

...a Fixation Is Very Stubborn: It Burrows Into The Brain And Breaks The Heart. There Are Many Fixations, But Love Is The Worst.

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

Do You Truly Believe That Life Is Fair, Senor De La Vega? -no, Maestro, But I Plan To Do Everything In My Power To Make It So.

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.

The Success Occurs In A Place Outside Of Me, And Doesn't Touch Me On An Intimate Level. I Live In My Own Skin, I Have Not Changed Greatly, I Remain The Same Woman.

You Can Tell The Deepest Truths With The Lies Of Fiction

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.

You Have The Health You Deserve.

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.

I Love Fiction Because In Fiction You Go Into The Thoughts Of People, The Little People, The People Who Were Defeated, The Poor, The Women, The Children That Are Never In History Books.

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.

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.

Conceit Is A Privilege Of The Ignorant; The Wise Man Is Humble Because He Knows How Little He Knows.

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

Remember That All The Others Are More Afraid Than You

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.

Someone Has Said That Conversation Is Sex For The Soul.

If We Don't Begin By Imagining The Perfect Society, How Shall We Create One?

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

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

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

I Like Hillary Clinton A Lot. I Know Her.

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.

We Only Have What We Give.

Those Who Seek The Truth Run The Risk Of Finding It.

I Can Promise You That Women Working Together - Linked, Informed And Educated - Can Bring Peace And Prosperity To This Forsaken Planet.

Working Together

He Realized...that The Loudest Are The Least Sincere, That Arrogance Is A Quality Of The Ignorant, And That Flatterers Tend To Be Vicious.

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.

In My Private Circle I Am A Mother, Grandmother, Wife, Friend, Daughter... The Success Means Nothing To My Small Tribe.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

She Was Considered Timid And Morose. Only In The Country, Her Skin Tanned By The Sun And Her Belly Full Of Ripe Fruit, Running Through The Fields With Pedro Tercero, Was She Smiling And Happy. Her Mother Said That That Was The Real Blanca, And That The Other One, The One Back In The City, Was A Blanca In Hibernation.

We Only Appreciate What We Have When We Lose It.

Only In Romance Novels Or In Thrillers People Live Outside Of A Social And Political Context.

If This World Is Going To Be A Better Place For Our Grandchildren And Great-grandchildren, It Will Be Women Who Make It So.

Happiness Is Pure Kitch; We Come Into The World To Suffer And Learn.

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.

As My Popo Used To Say, Life Is A Tapestry We Weave Day By Day With Threads Of Different Colors, Some Heavy And Dark, Others Thin And Bright, All The Threads Having Their Uses. The Stupid Things I Did Are Already In The Tapestry, Indelible, But I’m Not Going To Be Weighed Down By Them Till I Die. What’s Done Is Done; I Have To Look Ahead.

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.

Photographs Deceive Time, Freezing It On A Piece Of Cardboard Where The Soul Is Silent.

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.

I Have Travelled All Over The World And One Thing That Amazes Me Is That I Can Communicate With People. My Story May Be Different But Emotionally We Are All The Same.

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

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.

I See That In The Future, Things That We Have Lost In The Past Will Be Recovered. There's A Search For Those Things, A Search For Spirituality, For Nature, For The Goddess Religions, For Family And Human Bonding. All That Has Been Lost In This Industrial Era. People Are In Desperate Need Of Those Things. I Don't Think The World Will Destroy Itself In A Nuclear Cataclysm. On The Contrary, We Have The Capacity To Save Ourselves And Save The Planet, And We Will Use It.

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.

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

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.

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

She Sowed In My Mind The Idea That Reality Is Not Only What We See On The Surface; It Has A Magical Dimension As Well And, If We So Desire, It Is Legitimate To Enhance It And Color It To Make Our Journey Through Life Less Trying.

I've Been A Story-teller All My Life But I Realized It Only Recently.

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

I'm Not Willing To Sign A Contract. They Want Everything. They Want The Rights To Do The Movie And Everything Else They Can Think Of, Forever. There's No Limit To The Contract. In This Universe And Universes To Be Discovered - I'm Not Making This Up - This Is In The Contract.

Everyone In His Place And A Place For Everyone.

If I Write Something, I Fear It Will Happen, And If I Love Too Much, I Fear I Will Lose That Person; Nevertheless, I Cannot Stop Writing Or Loving.

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.

Barrabas Came To Us By Sea, The Child Clara Wrote In Her Delicate Calligraphy.

I Have Seen These Persons Speak Unthinkingly, Not Realizing That To Speak Is Also To Be. Word And Gesture Are Man's Thought. We Should Not Speak Without Reason.

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.

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.

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.

I've Been So Thoroughly Incorporated Into The California Culture That I Practice Meditation And Go To A Therapist, Even Though I Always Set A Trap: During My Meditation I Invent Stories To Keep From Being Bored, And In Therapy I Invent Stories To Keep From Boring The Psychologist.

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

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.

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.

I'm Aware Of The Mystery Around Us, So I Write About Coincidences, Premonitions, Emotions, Dreams, The Power Of Nature, Magic.

But I Don't Want More Things Than I Need, Either.

Twittering And Blogging And All That Is Fine, But There Is No Idea Of How To Phrase Something Beautifully; How To Use Language To Create An Emotion. It's Just Passing Information And Sometimes Very Superficial Information.

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 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.

We Live In An Era Where Masses Of People Come And Go Across A Hostile Planet, Desolate And Violent. Refugees, Emigrants, Exiles, Deportees. We Are A Tragic Contingent.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

People Think That They Will Sit Down And Produce The Great American Novel In One Sitting. It Doesn't Work That Way. This Is A Very Patient And Meticulous Work, And You Have To Do It With Joy And Love For The Process, Not For The Outcome.

We've Lost Our Sense Of Ethics; We Live In A World Of Small-mindedness, Of Gratification Without Happiness And Actions Without Meaning.

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

I Was Born In The Middle Of World War Ii, The Middle Of The Holocaust; I Was Born When There Was No Declaration Of Human Rights, When Feminism Was Not An Issue, When Children Were Working In Factories. I Mean, Today's World Is A Better Place!

The Pain Of Losing My Child Was A Cleansing Experience. I Had To Throw Overboard All Excess Baggage And Keep Only What Is Essential.

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

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.

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

When I Fall In Love I'm Obsessed.

Falling In Love

The Library Is Inhabited By Spirits That Come Out Of The Pages At Night.

My Name Is Eva, Which Means 'life,' According To A Book Of Names My Mother Consulted. I Was Born In The Back Room Of A Shadowy House, And Grew Up Amidst Ancient Furniture, Books In Latin, And Human Mummies, But None Of Those Things Made Me Melancholy, Because I Came Into The World With A Breath Of The Jungle In My Memory.

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.

There Is No Death, Daughter. People Die Only When We Forget Them.

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

...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.

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.

Young Women Don't Want To Be Called Feminists Because It's Not Sexy And Ah They Think That Their Mothers And Grandmothers Have Achieved Everything They Want. They Don't Know How Poor Women Live, How Women In Rural Places Live, How 80 Percent Of Women In The World Are The Poorest Of The Poor, How Still There Are 27 Million Slaves, And Most Of Them Women And Girls.

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.

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.

Everyone Has A Story, The Air Is Full Of Stories. The Creative Process Is Mysterious, I Don't Know Why It Is That Suddenly A Theme Will Take Hold Of Me And Refuse To Leave Me In Peace Until I Investigate It And Write It.

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.

A Novel Is Achieved With Hard Work, The Short Story With Inspiration.

Heart Is What Drives Us And Determines Our Fate.

After Fifty Most Of The Bullshit Is Gone.

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.

I Need To Remember To Overcome.

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.

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.

Cooking Can Be Like Foreplay.

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.

Words Are Not That Important When You Recognize Intentions.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

How Accommodating Love Is; It Forgives Everything.

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

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

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.

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.

Dying Is Not Easy. It's A Very Hard Transition.

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

Collecting Things

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.

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

The Biggest Straitjacket Is All The Prejudices That We Carry Around, And All The Fears. But What If We Just Surrender To The Fear? There Are Things Greater Than Fear. The Great, Wonderful Quality Of Human Beings Is That We Can Overcome Even Absolute Terror, And We Do.

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 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.

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

Music Is A Wind That Blows Away The Years, Memories, And Fear, That Crouching Animal I Carry Inside Me.

One Of The Characteristics Of North American Culture Is That You Can Always Start Again. You Can Always Move Forward, Cross A Border Of A State Or A City Or A County, And Move West, Most Of The Time West. You Leave Behind Guilt, Past Traditions, Memories. You Are As If Born Again, In The Sense Of The Snake: You Leave Your Skin Behind And You Begin Again. For Most People In The World, That Is Totally Impossible.

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

I'm Very Optimistic Because I Think That The Real Strength Of A Nation Like The United States Comes From Blending Cultures. There's No Way That You Can Close The Frontiers Anywhere. The Borders Are There To Be Violated Permanently.

The Writer Of Good Will Carries A Lamp To Illuminate The Dark Corners.

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.

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.

The World Is A Very Unjust, Unfair Place And We Have To Live With That. Historically, There Is Impunity For Most Crimes.

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

courage Is A Virtue Appreciated In A Male But Considered A Defect In Our Gender. Bold Women Are A Threat To A World That Is Badly Out Of Balance, In Favor Of Men.

True Friendship Resists Time, Distance And Silence.

No Complaining About How Hard It Is To Write, We Are All So, So Lucky To Write, To Sit Down, Inside, And Write Words On Paper. There Is No Greater Freedom, No Greater Good, Nothing That Brings More Joy.

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.

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

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 . . .

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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