Isabel Allende Quotes
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301. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

302. “The lack of a father leaves a hole in a woman’s heart, Lucia. A girl needs to feel she is protected; she needs masculine energy to develop trust in men and later to be able to give herself in love.”

— Isabel Allende

303. “A public official must understand from his first day in office that any show of initiative will signal the end of his career because he isn’t there to be meritorious but to reach his level of incompetence with dignity.”

— Isabel Allende

304. “Maybe the war against this cancer is lost, but meanwhile we can win a few battles.”

— Isabel Allende

305. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

306. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

307. “He had a presentiment that their fates would be intertwined, but immediately rejected it; he always tried to avoid falling into the traps of intuition.”

— Isabel Allende

308. “He had a booming laugh that bubbled up from the bowels of the earth and shook him from head to toe.”

— Isabel Allende

309. “His wife, Leanne, who came to his waist, looked like an undernourished adolescent with the face of a fly, but her fragility was deceptive: she had given birth to six male children and was expecting the seventh. She knew it would be male because God was determined to test her patience.”

— Isabel Allende

310. “I had a serious library at my disposal, because my Popo believed that culture entered by osmosis and it was better to start early, but my favorite books were fairy tales.”

— Isabel Allende

311. “I’ve been a story-teller all my life but I realized it only recently.”

— Isabel Allende

312. “Writing is my job. I don’t think of it as art.”

— Isabel Allende

313. “A muchas hijas nos ha tocado vivir la vida que nuestras madres no pudieron vivir.”

— Isabel Allende

314. “She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer.”

— Isabel Allende

315. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

316. “He missed his venerable master, who had marked him forever with a thirst for knowledge as persistent as the drunk’s thirst for alcohol or the ambitious man’s thirst for power. He no longer had his mentor’s library or his inexhaustible fount of experience.”

— Isabel Allende

317. “Fue lectora voraz desde muy corta edad, con los peligros que esa costumbre conlleva.”

— Isabel Allende

318. “The Germans are not a race of psychopaths, Alma. They’re normal people like you and me, but with fanaticism, power, and impunity, anyone can turn into a monster, like the SS at Auschwitz,” he told his sister.”

— Isabel Allende

319. “My heart is broken, he told himself. It was at that moment he understood the profound meaning of that common phrase: he thought he heard the sound of glass breaking and felt that the essence of his being was pouring out until he was empty, with no memory of the past, no awareness of the present, no hope for the future.”

— Isabel Allende

320. “Writers speak for those who are kept in silence.”

— Isabel Allende

321. “I’m very optimistic because I think that the real strength of a nation like the United States comes from blending cultures. There’s no way that you can close the frontiers anywhere. The borders are there to be violated permanently.”

— Isabel Allende

322. “What is the most generous thing to do in this case?”

— Isabel Allende

323. “Boredom, Timothy Duane assured me, is nothing more than anger without passion.”

— Isabel Allende

324. “Mothers, on the other hand, are trees with firm roots.”

— Isabel Allende

325. “Clara lived in a universe of her own invention, protected from life’s inclement weather, where the prosaic truth of material objects mingled with the tumultuous reality of dreams and the laws of physics and logic did not always apply.”

— Isabel Allende

326. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

327. “The deep Chile of the fascists had always been there, beneath the surface, just waiting to emerge. It was the triumph of the arrogant Right, the defeat of the people who believed in that utopian revolution.”

— Isabel Allende

328. “Two-thirds of those evacuated at that time had been born in the United States and were American citizens. Standing in long lines, the Japanese had to wait for hours in front of the desks of the officials, who took down their names and handed out labels for them to wear around their necks with their identity number, the same as for their luggage.”

— Isabel Allende

329. “If for any reason you don’t like the word feminist, look for another word. The name is not important as long as the work gets done for yourself and for your sisters in the rest of the world who need it.”

— Isabel Allende

330. “This is what women want: to be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved.”

— Isabel Allende

331. “I have more freedom when I write fiction, but my memoirs have had a much stronger impact on my readers. Somehow the ‘message,’ even if I am not even aware that there is one, is conveyed better in this form.”

— Isabel Allende

332. “Non parlarmi di domani e di ieri, vivo solamente per questo istante dell’oggi in cui torno a inabissarmi nella notte infinita dei tuoi occhi scuri.”

— Isabel Allende

333. “It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail... 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 out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us.”

— Isabel Allende

334. “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.”

— Isabel Allende

335. “That was the beginning of the revolution. Many years have gone by and blood keeps running, soaking the soil of Haiti, but I am not there to weep.”

— Isabel Allende

336. “Happiness is slippery, it slithers away between your fingers, but problems are something you can hold on to, they’ve got handles, they’re rough and hard.”

— Isabel Allende

337. “I must not linger on details, daughter, because if we dally, this account may be left unfinished, and no one wants to read hundreds of quartos only to find that the story has no clear ending.”

— Isabel Allende

338. “Our land only rewards those who work hard in it.”

— Isabel Allende

339. “Mi vida ha sido una serie de navegaciones, he ido de un lado a otro en esta tierra. He sido extranjero sin saber que tenia raices profundas...”

— Isabel Allende

340. “Without science, industry, and technology, no progress is possible, and without music and art, there’s no soul,” he would maintain.”

— Isabel Allende

341. “Fourth of July picnic. And by the way, that picnic, like everything else in this land, is a model of efficiency: you drive at top speed, set up in a previously reserved space, spread out the baskets, bolt your food, kick the ball, and rush home to avoid the traffic. In Chile, a similar project would take three days.”

— Isabel Allende

342. “I was terrified of being dependent too, Alma,” Dr. Catherine Hope told her one day. “But I’ve realized it’s not such a big deal. You get used to it, and are grateful for the assistance. I can’t dress or take a shower on my own, I have problems brushing my teeth and cutting the chicken on my plate, but I’ve never been more contented than I am now.”

— Isabel Allende

343. “If I have a perfect lover waiting for me in California, why would I want an imperfect husband?” I argued. “Lovers don’t last; a husband is a captive prey,” she replied.”

— Isabel Allende

344. “What can we do with this happiness that appears for no obvious reason, the joy that needs no cause to exist?”

— Isabel Allende

345. “The poet thought this was a splendid riposte, and so accepted him on board, together with fishermen, farm and factory workers, manual laborers, and intellectuals as well, despite instructions from his government to avoid anyone with ideas.”

— Isabel Allende

346. “I called him Grandfather, because according to him you do not have to be of the same blood or same tribe to be a member of the same family, but in truth I should have called him Maman. He was the only mother I ever knew.”

— Isabel Allende

347. “The Germans are not a race of psychopaths, Alma. They’re normal people like you and me, but with fanaticism, power, and impunity, anyone can turn into a monster, like the SS at Auschwitz,” he told his sister. “Do you think that, given the opportunity, you’d also behave like a monster, Samuel?” “I don’t think it, Alma, I know it. I’ve been a soldier all my life. I’ve been to war. I’ve interrogated prisoners, a large number of them. But I assume you don’t want details.”

— Isabel Allende

348. “Hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees were escaping to France, where a campaign of fear and hatred awaited them.”

— Isabel Allende

349. “Si eres brillante de joven, no significa que de adulto sirvas para algo.”

— Isabel Allende

350. “But I don’t want more things than I need, either.”

— Isabel Allende