Quotes from Isabel Allende

The only good thing about marriage is becoming a widow

No hagamos promesas que tal vez no podamos cumplir. Vamos a recorrer este camino juntos, paso a paso, día a día, con la mejor intención. Eso es lo único que podemos prometernos.

Sometimes our fates take turns that we don't notice in the moment they occur, but if you live as long as I have they become clear in hindsight.

The world is paralyzed, and humanity is in quarantine. It is a strange symmetry that I was born in one pandemic and will die during another.

Enfrenta los obstáculos a medida que se presenten, no pierdas energía temiendo lo que pueda haber en el futuro

She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she'd been born with it or baptized it, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of 'beauty' and 'twilight' and cloaked herself in it. She made her living selling words.

Cada uno escoge el tono para contar su propia historia; quisiera optar por la claridad durable de una impresión en platino, pero nada en mi destino posee esa luminosa cualidad. Vivo entre difusos matices, velados misterios, incertidumbres; el tono para contar mi vida se ajusta más al de un retrato en sepia...

La orice vârst? trebuie s? ai un scop în via??, aÈ™a se vindec? multe rele.

Que hay al otro lado de la vida?¿Es solo noche silenciosa y soledad? ¿Que queda cuando no hay deseos, recuerdos ni esperanzas? ¿Que hay en la muerte? Si pudiera permanecer inmovil, sin hablar ni pensar, sin suplicar, sin llorar, recordar o esperar, si pudiera sumergirme en el silencio mas completo, tal vez entonces pudiera oirte, hija.

Affection must be cultivated, Camilo; it has to be watered and tended like a plant

Hay grandeza y dignidad en la tragedia, por eso es fuente de inspiración, pero no quiero tragedia, por inmortal que sea, quiero una dicha sin bulla, íntima y muy discreta, para no provocar los celos de los dioses, siempre tan vengativos...

Sometimes I have these premonitions and I don't forget them, so I will be prepared when they happen.

El mundo es violento y predatorio, regido por la ley implacable de los más fuertes. La selección de la especie no ha servido para que florezca la inteligencia o evolucione el espíritu. A la primera oportunidad nos destrozamos unos a otros como ratas prisioneras en una caja demasiado estrecha.

Los hijos, como los libros, son viajes al interior de una misma en los cuales el cuerpo, la mente y el alma cambian de direccion, se vuelven hacia el centro mismo de la existencia.

Me resulta complicado escribir sobre mi vida, porque no sè cuánto recuerdo y cuánto es producto de mi imaginación;la estricta verdad puede ser tediosa y por eso, sin darme ni cuenta, la cambio o la exagero, pero me he propuesto corregir ese defecto y mentir lo menos posible en el futuro.

Going around in a sulk will get you nowhere. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.

He knew that her body was his to engage in all the acrobatics he had learned in the books he kept hidden in a corner of his library, but with Clara even the most abominable contortions were like the thrashings of a newborn; it was impossible to spice them up with the salt of evil or the pepper of submission.

Writing is like riding a bicycle: you don't forget how, even if you go for years without doing it.

No hay peor pobreza que la de la gente venida a menos, porque se debe aparentar lo que no se tiene.

she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had.

Tenía la ternura torpe de quien nunca ha sido amado y debe improvisar.

The only cure for so much misfortune is love. It's not the force of gravity that keeps the universe in balance, but the binding power of love.

All you will have is the present. Waste no energy crying over yesterday or dreaming of tomorrow. Nostalgia is fatiguing and destructive, it is the vice of the expatriate. You must put down roots as if they were forever, you must have a sense of permanence.

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. - Clara the clairvoyant