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" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Family
People
Me
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" Feminism is not dead, by no means. It has evolved. If you don't like the term, change it, for Goddess' sake. Call it Aphrodite, or Venus, or bimbo, or whatever you want; the name doesn't matter, as long as we understand what it is about, and we support it. "
Isabel Allende
Name
Long
Change
" The longest, most solid and complex relationship in my life is with my mother. It started before I was born, and now, when I am 71 and living in California and she is 92 and living in Chile, we are still in touch daily. "
Isabel Allende
Relationship
Daily
Life
" Writing is my job. I don't think of it as art. "
Isabel Allende
Art
Job
Writing
" Every life of a character is within a context. If I write detached from a social and political background, my story looks like a soap opera where everybody is indoors, not working and living off their emotions. "
Isabel Allende
Looks
Life
Character
" My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief. "
Isabel Allende
Struggle
Grief
Writing
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Imagination
Truth
Memory
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Angry
Childhood
Fear
" I was a political refugee living in Venezuela. I had a job that was twelve hours a day, no money. It was a hard time. "
Isabel Allende
Money
Time
Political
" I am happier when I love than when I am loved. I adore my husband, my son, my grandchildren, my mother, my dog, and frankly, I don't know if they even like me. But who cares? Loving them is my joy. "
Isabel Allende
Dog
Son
Love
" My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses. "
Isabel Allende
Great
My Life
Moving On
" Empowering women means trusting them. "
Isabel Allende
Means
Trusting
Women
" I have been a woman for 46 years and I only recently realized I can't change it and I like it. "
Isabel Allende
Been
Years
Woman
" You couldn't find two people more different than my mother and I. There are a thousand things about me that she fought against. "
Isabel Allende
Me
Mother
People
" A memoir is an invitation into another person's privacy. "
Isabel Allende
Invitation
Memoir
Privacy
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Love
American
Think
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Mouth
Say
Words
" If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so. "
Isabel Allende
Grandchildren
Women
World
" I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them. "
Isabel Allende
Me
Why
Want
" The media could do a much better job, that's for sure, especially the media that targets women... Human rights? They couldn't care less! "
Isabel Allende
Media
Women
Care
" If I can write it, I can cope. And I've been writing many books, but in every book, I try to explore something in my own soul that I need to solve, I need to understand. "
Isabel Allende
Book
Writing
Understand
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Like
Love
New
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
You
People
Interesting
" My mother didn't want me to be a feminist, a radical, political person, because she was scared. She wanted me to be protected and safe, but my life never was. "
Isabel Allende
Life
Mother
My Life
" I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year, and I took care of her at home until she died in my arms in December of 1992. "
Isabel Allende
Daughter
Home
She
" I write a letter to my mother every day, because in that letter, I write down my day. And if I don't write it down, then tomorrow I will forget it and it's gone. "
Isabel Allende
Forget
Mother
Tomorrow
" I don't read thrillers, romance or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes. "
Isabel Allende
Mystery
Believe
Romance
" I rebelled against all form of authority, against my grandfather, my step-father, the Church, the police, the government, the bosses. Everything male that was there, and was determining my life. "
Isabel Allende
Police
Government
Life
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Life
Chaos
Whatever
" Everything I write has to be connected to my life. One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women. "
Isabel Allende
Writing
Freedom
Life
" 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
Today
War
Women