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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.

-Isabel Allende

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She Regretted Nothing She

Isabel Allende

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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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Heart Is What Drives Us And Determines Our Fate.

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.

I Need To Remember To Overcome.

Write What Should Not Be Forgotten.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Writers Speak For Those Who Are Kept In Silence

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Words Are Not That Important When You Recognize Intentions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Heroism Is A Badly Remunerated Occupation, And Often It Leads To An Early End, Which Is Why It Appeals To Fanatics Or Persons With An Unhealthy Fascination With Death.

The Fastest-growing Population In The United States Is The Older People, Because We Are Living Much Longer, Healthier Lives. The Problem Is, Individuals Often Don't Have The Resources To Take Care Of Older People As They Age. This Is Something That Is Happening, And We Have To Deal With It. It Was Happening Also In My Life.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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

We Only Appreciate What We Have When We Lose It.

Writing Is A Constant Exercise In Longing.

Cooking Can Be Like Foreplay.

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.

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.

Nations Should Be Governed By A Council Of Learned Men Who Must Answer To The People For Their Actions.

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.

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.

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

Everyone In His Place And A Place For Everyone.

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

I Never Said I Wanted A 'happy' Life But An Interesting One. From Separation And Loss, I Have Learned A Lot. I Have Become Strong And Resilient, As Is The Case Of Almost Every Human Being Exposed To Life And To The World. We Don't Even Know How Strong We Are Until We Are Forced To Bring That Hidden Strength Forward.

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.

At The Most Difficult Moments Of My Life, When It Seemed That Every Door Was Closed To Me, The Taste Of Those Apricots Comes Back To Comfort Me With The Notion That Abundance Is Always Within Reach, If Only One Knows How To Find It.

Be Careful What You Ask Of Heaven; It Might Be Granted.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm Surrounded By Young People. I'm Always Now The Oldest And The Shortest Person In The Room.

Barrabas Came To Us By The Sea.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 . . .

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

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

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

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

You Are My Angel And My Damnation; In Your Presence I Reach Divine Ecstasy And In Your Absence I Descent To Hell.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

With Women The Best Aphrodisiac Is Words.

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

Falling In Love

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Fear Is Inevitable, I Have To Accept That, But I Cannot Allow It To Paralyze Me.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

...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.

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

You Can Tell The Deepest Truths With The Lies Of Fiction

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

When I Fall In Love I'm Obsessed.

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

You Write A Book And It's Like Putting A Message In A Bottle And Throwing It In The Ocean. You Don't Know If It Will Ever Reach Any Shores. And There, You See, Sometimes It Falls In The Hands Of The Right Person.

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.

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.

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

I Like Hillary Clinton A Lot. I Know Her.

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.

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

Memory Is Fiction. We Select The Brightest And The Darkest, Ignoring What We Are Ashamed Of, And So Embroider The Broad Tapestry Of Our Lives.

I'm Not Above Anybody. I'm, I'm Not Better Than Anybody. I Am Made Of The Same Material That Everybody Else Is And If Somebody Can Be A Saint, So Can I And If Somebody Can Be A Torturer, So Can I.

When I Started Working In A Feminist Feminine Magazine All My Life Was About Rebelling Against Male Authority, Which Is Authority In General Is Male, So It Was Rebelling Against Everything. Everything That Was Around Me Made Me Angry.

For Women In My Lifetime Things Have Changed Quite A Bit, But Not Enough. They Have Only Changed For Women That Have Education And Access To Health Care In The Western World. But Look At The Rest Of The World. Still In Many Places, Women Are Sold Into Premature Marriages, Prostitution, Forced Labor; They Are Forced To Have Children That They Cannot Support Or That They Don't Want. They Are Abused, Tortured, Exploited And Even Killed With Impunity.

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!

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

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.

You Have The Health You Deserve.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

Having A Point To Start Is Important. You Know That When You Decide To Write Something It's Like A Commitment. It's Like Falling In Love.

Falling In Love

Many Children Fly Like Birds, Guess Other People's Dreams, And Speak With Ghosts, But ... They All Outgrow It When They Lose Their Innocence.

Feminism Has Never Been Sexy, But Let Me Assure You That It Never Stopped Me From Flirting, And I Have Seldom Suffered From Lack Of Men.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Empowering Women Means Trusting Them.

Empowering Women

I Am An American Citizen And It Is My Home Now. I Like The Usa, Which Is Not A Place Too Many People Have Liked Since Bush. The Us Has A Young Population, And Everything Can Change Within A Year.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

Falling In Love

Love Is Music, And Sex Is Only The Instrument.

Everyone Is Born With Some Special Talent.

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.

There Is Room In The Human Heart For All The Divinities.

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.

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.

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

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

Working Together

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.

What Is Truer Than Truth? Answer: The Story.

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

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

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

I Have More Freedom When I Write Fiction, But My Memoirs Have Had A Much Stronger Impact On My Readers. Somehow The 'message,' Even If I Am Not Even Aware That There Is One, Is Conveyed Better In This Form.

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Kamla Persad-Bissessar

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