Quote collection
322 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks."
"As my Popo used to say, life is a tapestry we weave day by day with threads of different colors, some heavy and dark, others thin and bright, all the threads having their uses. The stupid things I did are already in the tapestry, indelible, but I’m not going to be weighed down by them till I die. What’s done is done; I have to look ahead."
"Peace requires everyone to be in the circle - wholeness, inclusion."
"Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape....For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place."
"What is truer than truth? Answer: the story."
"Many children fly like birds, guess other people's dreams, and speak with ghosts, but ... they all outgrow it when they lose their innocence."
"What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse."
"I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be."
"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."
"We need a global approach to this from all sides. We need to educate people, we need the scientists to create new technologies, we need the engineers to create the networks, we need every human being to be aware of how precious water is and save it. Everybody has to be involved in a very firm and assertive way."
"Women have always been courageous... They are always fearless when protecting their children and in the last century they have been fearless in the fight for their rights."
"How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?"
"All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them."
"Those who seek the truth run the risk of finding it."
"A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot."
"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."
"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."
"True friendship resists time, distance and silence."
"The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear . . ."
"If I write something, I fear it will happen, and if I love too much, I fear I will lose that person; nevertheless, I cannot stop writing or loving."