Top 500 Isabel Allende Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “True friendship resists time, distance and silence.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Friendship Quotes, Silence Quotes, True Friendship Quotes, Best Friend Quotes

2. “We only have what we give.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Helping Others Quotes, Compassion Quotes

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

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Focus On Yourself Quotes

4. “Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Sad Quotes, Silence Quotes

5. “Write what should not be forgotten.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Legacy Quotes

6. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Quotes About Strength, Strong Quotes, Human Nature Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Survival Quotes

7. “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

— Isabel Allende

8. “Writing is a calling, not a choice.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Choices Quotes

9. “We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”

— Isabel Allende

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

— Isabel Allende

11. “Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Anxiety Quotes

12. “Those who seek the truth run the risk of finding it.”

— Isabel Allende

13. “Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.”

— Isabel Allende

14. “I think I was a feminist before the word was invented.”

— Isabel Allende

15. “We only appreciate what we have when we lose it.”

— Isabel Allende

16. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Real Quotes

17. “Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.”

— Isabel Allende

18. “A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot.”

— Isabel Allende

19. “You can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

— Isabel Allende

20. “Peace requires everyone to be in the circle – wholeness, inclusion.”

— Isabel Allende

21. “The hardest thing of love is to let go.”

— Isabel Allende

22. “Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Country Quotes

23. “I can promise you that women working together – linked, informed and educated – can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.”

— Isabel Allende

24. “La verdadera amistad resiste el tiempo, la distancia y el silencio.”

— Isabel Allende

25. “What is truer than truth? Answer: the story.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

26. “I don’t want an uneventful and safe life, I prefer an adventurous one.”

— Isabel Allende

27. “Writing is like making love. Don’t worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.”

— Isabel Allende

28. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

29. “What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.”

— Isabel Allende

30. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

31. “The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.”

— Isabel Allende

32. “Empowering women means trusting them.”

— Isabel Allende

33. “Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten.”

— Isabel Allende

34. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Real Quotes

35. “Youth is not a period in life but a state of mind.”

— Isabel Allende

36. “Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows.”

— Isabel Allende

37. “Aphrodite is about lust and gluttony – the only two sins worth committing, in my opinion.”

— Isabel Allende

38. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

39. “You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.”

— Isabel Allende

40. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

41. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

42. “You only have what you give. It’s by spending yourself that you become rich.”

— Isabel Allende

43. “Everyone in his place and a place for everyone.”

— Isabel Allende

44. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

45. “The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential.”

— Isabel Allende

46. “Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.”

— Isabel Allende

47. “A novel is achieved with hard work, the short story with inspiration.”

— Isabel Allende

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

48. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

49. “Todos tenemos demonios en los rincones oscuros del alma, pero si los sacamos a la luz, los demonios se achican, se debilitan, se callan y al fin nos dejan en paz.”

— Isabel Allende

50. “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.”

— Isabel Allende