Quotes from Isabel Allende

There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain.

We've lost our sense of ethics; we live in a world of small-mindedness, of gratification without happiness and actions without meaning.

You have the health you deserve.

Writing is a calling, not a choice.

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.

I can't control life for my grandchildren, so how could I control a story? Sometimes I try to force something, and after working and working on that chapter, I realise that I am swimming against the current. I will never get there. So I have to let go of whatever previous idea I had about it and let the characters decide.

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.

I rebelled against all form of authority, against my grandfather, my step-father, the Church, the police, the government, the bosses. Everything male that was there, and was determining my life.

Men's memoirs are about answers; women's memoirs are about questions. Most male authors want to look good in their memoirs and have a place in posterity, while most women know that posterity is what happens when you no longer care. Women want to connect with others here and now; they couldn't care less about legacy!

A man who cooks is very sexy. A woman who cooks is not that sexy. Because it's associated in our mind to the domestic cliche of the woman.

Give, give, give-what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away?

You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not.

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.

if we don't begin by imagining the perfect society, how shall we create one?

You spend the first part of your life collecting things ... and the second half getting rid of them.

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.

Feminism is not dead, by no means. It has evolved. If you don't like the term, change it, for Goddess' sake. Call it Aphrodite, or Venus, or bimbo, or whatever you want; the name doesn't matter, as long as we understand what it is about, and we support it.

A memoir is an invitation into another person's privacy.

It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine.

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.

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.

My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.

At five I was already a feminist, and nobody used the word in Chile yet.

I write until the first draft is finished, and then I feel that I can get out. But, during the time of the writing of the first draft, I don't go out. I'm just locked away, writing. It's a time of meditation, of going into the story.