Quotes from Isabel Allende

You're going to have time to get bored, Maya. Take advantage of it to write down the monumental stupidities you've committed, see if you can come to grips with them

Me eché a llorar sin control, y ese torrente de lágrimas me fue lavando por dentro hasta que nada quedó del rencor y la culpa y los malos recuerdos.

Take note: If little by little you stop loving me, I'll stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me Don't come looking for me, I'll already have forgotten you. —PABLO NERUDA "If you forget me" THE CAPTAIN'S VERSES

Without science, industry, and technology, no progress is possible, and without music and art, there's no soul

We always think things like that only happen elsewhere, said Miguel, until they happen to us too.

Multitud de niñas ricas con mente pobre.

Long before the Europeans arrived in Africa, the blacks were enslaving each other. They still do," said Valmorain. "Just as whites are enslaving each other, monsieur," the physician countered. "Not all Negroes are slaves, nor all slaves black. Africa is a continent of free people. Millions of Africans are subjected to slavery but many more are free. Slavery is not their destiny, just as is also the case with thousands of whites who are slaves.

Hijo mío, la Santa Madre Iglesia está a la derecha, pero Jesucristo siempre estuvo a la izquierda

la juventud no es una época de la vida sino un estado de ánimo... uno tiene la salud que se merece.

How would I run with my bad leg? And what would become of the people who need my care? Besides, it doesn't mean anything for me to be free and everyone else slaves, the healer answered. Tete hadn't thought of that, and it kept buzzing around her brain like a bottlefly. She talked about it with her godmother many times, but she was never able to accept the idea that her freedom was irreparably bound to that of the other slaves.

Mis pesadillas son un viaje a ciegas hacia las umbrosas cavernas donde duermen mis recuerdos mas antiguos, bloqueados en los estratos profundos de la conciencia.

La violencia contra las mujeres es universal y tan antigua como la civilización misma. Cuando se habla de derechos humanos, en la práctica se habla de derechos de los hombres. Si un hombre es golpeado y privado de libertad, es tortura. Si lo mismo soporta una mujer se llama violencia doméstica

Next to the tree was a short, broad-shouldered Asian man in overalls and a straw hat, leaning on a spade. His face was weathered, and in a halting English difficult to follow, he told Alma that this moment was beautiful, but that it would last only a few days before the blooms fell like rain to the ground; much better was the memory of the cherry tree in bloom, because that would last all year, until the following spring.

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.

La escritura es una larga introspección, es un viaje hacia las cavernas más oscuras de la conciencia, una lenta meditación. Escribo a tientas en el silencio y por el camino descubro partículas de verdad, pequeños cristales que caben en la palma de una mano y justifican mi paso por este mundo.

Había tenido que tejer el amor con recuerdos...

The author Eduardo Galeano said that "in the end, women's fear of men's violence is a reflection of men's fear of women without fear.

A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead,, that is their incentive.

Awake it was difficult to find anything in that chaotic clutter, but asleep she could...when the contours of reality were as faint as a tracery of pale ink.

Capitaine Etienne Relais was known to be incorruptible in an ambience in which vice was the norm, honor for sale, and laws made to be broken, and men operated on the assumption that he who did not abuse power did not deserve to have it.

Tal vez la vejez es otro comienzo, tal vez se pueda volver al tiempo mágico de la infancia, ese tiempo anterior al pensamiento lineal y a los prejuicios, cuando percibía el universo con los sentidos exaltados de un demente y era libre para creer lo increíble y explorar mundos que después, en la época de la razón, desaparecieron.

La tensión se aflojó poco a poco. Ella tomó entre sus manos la oscura cabeza de su amigo y lo miró. Sonrieron aliviados, divertidos, temblorosos, seguros de que no intentarían una aventura fugaz porque estaban hechos para compartir la existencia en su totalidad y emprender juntos la audacia de amarse para siempre

We have often said that loving each other is our destiny, that we have loved each other in past lives and will go on meeting in lives to come. Or it may be there is no past or future, and everything takes place simultaneously in the universe's infinite dimensions. If that is so, we remain together forever. It's fantastic to be alive. We are still seventeen years old, my Alma.

If God exists...God would be a Marxist.