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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.

-Isabel Allende

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The Fact People Think

Isabel Allende

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing's As Dangerous As Power With Impunity.

We Only Have What We Give.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Everyone In His Place And A Place For Everyone.

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

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.

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

Two Thirds Of The Work In The World Is Done By Women. Women Own 1 Percent Of The Assets. Young Women Are Sold Into Prostitution, Forced Labour, Premature Marriage, Forced To Have Children They Don't Want Or They Can't Support. They're Abused, Raped, Beaten Up. Domestic Violence Is Supposed To Be A Cultural Problem. They Are The First Victims Of War, Fundamentalism, Conflict, Recession. And Young Women Who Have Access To Education And Health Care And Have Resources Think That Everything Was Done, They Don't Have To Worry.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Writing Is A Constant Exercise In Longing.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Words Are Not That Important When You Recognize Intentions.

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.

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

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

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

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.

When A Man's Earning His Living Doing Things He Doesn't Like, He Feels Like A Slave; When He's Doing What He Loves, He Feels Like A Prince.

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.

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

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.

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

Sex Is The Instrument And Love The Music.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'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.

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.

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

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.

Love Is A Free Contract That Begins With A Spark And Can End The Same Way.

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.

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

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

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.

Write What Should Not Be Forgotten.

And I Am Not One Of Those Women Who Trips Twice Over The Same Stone.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Everyone Is Born With Some Special Talent.

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

Collecting Things

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.

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.

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

Falling In Love

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.

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

Real Soup Is To The Body What Peace Is To The Soul.

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.

Just As Daniel Balalcazar Said, It Makes No Sense To Suffer In Advance A Misfortune That May Never Occur.

True Friendship Resists Time, Distance And Silence.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

My Books Are Based On Emotions, Feelings, Relationships. In These Areas Women Are Experts, So It's Not Strange That The Main Characters Of My Novels Are Females.

Emotions Feelings

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

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

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.

Love Is Music, And Sex Is Only The Instrument.

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.

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 Try To Let Go Of The Intellect And Just Tell The Story. I Only Read The Page I Have In Front Of Me On The Screen. Then When The Whole Story Is Told, I Print It, Wait A Week And Read It.

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.

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.

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

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

Heart Is What Drives Us And Determines Our Fate.

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

Barrabas Came To Us By The Sea.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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'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.

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

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.

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

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

I Like Hillary Clinton A Lot. I Know Her.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Perhaps We Are In This World To Search For Love, Find It And Lose It, Again And Again. With Each Love, We Are Born Anew, And With Each Love That Ends We Collect A New Wound. I Am Covered With Proud Scars.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

Someone Has Said That Conversation Is Sex For The Soul.

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.

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."

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Met A Guy, Very Exotic To Me - He Was Blonde With Blue Eyes - And I Just Had A Fling That Turned Out To Be Love. I Moved To San Francisco To Spend A Week With Him And Get Him Out Of My System; I'm Still Here 26 Years Later.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

Cooking Can Be Like Foreplay.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

Empowering Women Means Trusting Them.

Empowering Women

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