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" I wring my hands because I know that as a dude, my privilege, my long-term deficiencies work against me in writing women, no matter how hard I try and how talented I am. "
Junot Diaz
I Am
Hands
Writing
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" I don't think you can be from the Caribbean and not know a certain amount about the apocalypse. "
Junot Diaz
Know
You
Think
" If you, like, consciously think about being cool, you're not cool. If you consciously think about being, like, different or original, you ain't different or original. "
Junot Diaz
Original
Like
You
" We hide so well. This is the bottom line: how hidden is male subjectivity? Name five books where male subjectivity is produced in an honest way. "
Junot Diaz
Hidden
Way
Name
" We have a whole bunch of young people and a whole bunch of families. Are we going to disrupt these families and tear them apart? Or are we going think, like, listen - these people are here. We've got to deal with this reality. We've got to extend the franchise. "
Junot Diaz
Think
Reality
People
" Colleagues are a wonderful thing - but mentors, that's where the real work gets done. "
Junot Diaz
Work
Colleagues
Done
" When I write, what I long for is not more realism or fiction but more courage. That's what I always find myself short on and what I have to struggle to achieve in order that the work might live. "
Junot Diaz
Courage
Myself
Live
" I'm just this Dominican kid from New Jersey. "
Junot Diaz
Jersey
New
Kid
" When I was working on 'Drown' - this was way back in the mid-'90s - I had this idea that I wanted to do another collected stories. I wanted to do another book like 'Drown' that focused specifically on infidelity. "
Junot Diaz
Like
Back
Book
" I am a chatty person, but colossally discreet. "
Junot Diaz
Am
I Am
Discreet
" Art has a way of confronting us, of reminding us, of engaging us, in what it means to be human, and what it means to be human is to be flawed, is to be contradictory, is to be often weak, and yet despite all of these what we would consider drawbacks, that we're also quite beautiful. Spin is the opposite. "
Junot Diaz
Us
Human
Weak
" For my first three books the setting (or place if you will) has always been a given - N.J. and the Dominican Republic and some N.Y.C. - so from one perspective you could say that the place in my work always comes first. "
Junot Diaz
Three
Place
Perspective
" We get so many people saying short fiction is not economical, that it doesn't sell; but there are so many of us enjoying writing it and reading it. So it's wonderful to be around people who love short fiction too - it's like hanging around with my tribe. "
Junot Diaz
Reading
People
Writing
" You never forget the discovery years. First kisses. The first time you try certain foods. "
Junot Diaz
You
Never Forget
Try
" In fact, looking at the darkest sides of the United States has only made me appreciate the things that we do right, the things that we do beautifully. We are, for all of our mistakes and all of our crimes, a remarkable place. "
Junot Diaz
Looking
Place
Me
" Art is not boosterism, it's not propaganda, and it's not spin, but that's not something that art does, and nor has it historically ever done it. "
Junot Diaz
Propaganda
Art
Something
" I act most like myself... when I'm in my hometown, Santo Domingo. I try to get there about five times a year. "
Junot Diaz
Like
Year
Try
" I sleep way too much and I read tremendously. "
Junot Diaz
Read
Too Much
Much
" I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it. "
Junot Diaz
Mind
Think
Ideas
" The thing is, you try your best, and what else you got? You try your best, really, that's all you can do. And for me, my best happens really so rarely. "
Junot Diaz
Got
Your
You
" Let me tell you, if I could write one-tenth as fast as some of my friends, I'd be made. I'd be it. But instead I happen to be, in the tree of life of writers, down at the bottom, with the hematodes. "
Junot Diaz
Life
Fast
Me
" I have a very powerful sense of place, but I have a very powerful sense of being a migrant, so it's both. It seems like I'm always leaving my home. That's part of the formula. I love the Dominican Republic. I go back all the time. I love New Jersey. Go back all the time. "
Junot Diaz
Time
Powerful
Back
" I really am a believer that 99.99% of all the stories we need, not only as artists but as human beings, not only as writers but as readers, haven't been written yet. Certainly haven't been published yet. "
Junot Diaz
Need
Only
Really
" It wasn't that I couldn't write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7 A.M., would work a full eight and more. Scribbled at the dinner table, in bed, on the toilet, on the No. 6 train, at Shea Stadium. I did everything I could. But none of it worked. "
Junot Diaz
Work
Writing
Train
" It took me 11 years to struggle through one dumb book, and every day you just want to give up. But you don't find out you're an artist because you do something really well. "
Junot Diaz
Struggle
You
Artist
" I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant. Not: 'This is Dominican food. This is a Spanish word.' I trust my readers, even non-Spanish ones. "
Junot Diaz
Up
People
Food
" My father was a trigamist; he supported three families. We were never not poor. "
Junot Diaz
Poor
Three
Families
" Stereotypes, they're sensual, cultural weapons. That's the way that we attack people. At an artistic level, stereotypes are terrible writing. "
Junot Diaz
Way
Level
People
" New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino. "
Junot Diaz
Me
History
Latino
" When I enter that higher-order space that's required to write, I'm a better human. For whatever my writing is, wherever it's ranked, it definitely is the one place that I get to be beautiful. "
Junot Diaz
Better
Place
Space
" I'm one of those apocalyptics. From the start of my immigrant days, I've been fascinated by end-of-the-world stories, by outbreak narratives, and always wanted to set a world-ender on Hispaniola. "
Junot Diaz
Always
Start
Immigrant