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" Empowering women means trusting them. "

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" I try to write the kind of books I like to read. "

" There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized. "

" The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela, where I couldn't find a place for myself, for years and years. "

" I have written about Chile extensively, and therefore I have read many books on the subject, mostly for research. "

" 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. "

" I was a very bad journalist. Awful. I would just invent everything. If I did an interview, I had a preconception of what that person should say and I would put my words in his mouth. "

" I like historical fiction. I fell in love with New Orleans the first time I visited it. And I wanted to place a story in New Orleans. "

" Fear is like a black cavern that is terrifying. Once you enter the cavern and explore it, you realize that you can get out of it, go through it and get out of it. "

" I was born in ancient times, at the end of the world, in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet, so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me. "

" 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. "

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

" What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse. "

" I was a lousy journalist. I could never be objective. Sometimes I invented the whole story. "

" 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. "

" If you write nonfiction, a historical account of what really happened, first of all, it's always white men who do that, and you don't have the voices that are really interesting to me, of the people who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have become an American citizen, and I love this country. I think that this country has incredible potential for goodness, an incredible possibility for doing the wrong thing, too. "

" I try to let go of the intellect and just tell the story. I only read the page I have in front of me on the screen. Then when the whole story is told, I print it, wait a week and read it. "

" I can promise you that women working together - linked, informed and educated - can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet. "

Working Together

" The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses. "

" I have travelled all over the world and one thing that amazes me is that I can communicate with people. My story may be different but emotionally we are all the same. "

" The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing. "

" I'm a writer. In Latin America, they say I'm a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I'm also an American writer. "

" 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. "

" I confess that I am a messy, disorganized and impatient reader: if the book doesn't grab me in the first 40 pages, I abandon it. I have piles of half-read books waiting for me to get acute hepatitis or some other serious condition that would force me to rest so that I could read more. "

" In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: 'No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband.' My husband is a writer of crime novels. His name is William Gordon. And so I had to accommodate to his style because that's what he writes. So we decided we'd give it a try. Well, we almost divorced. "

" I've been a story-teller all my life but I realized it only recently. "

" I was such a sullen, angry, sad kid. I'm sure there are writers who have had happy childhoods, but what are you going to write about? No ghosts, no fear. I'm very happy that I had an unhappy and uncomfortable childhood. "

" The poorest and most backward societies are always those that put women down. "