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" 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
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" The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential. Because of Paula, I don't cling to anything anymore. Now I like to give much more than to receive. "
Isabel Allende
Pain
Losing
Child
" The poorest and most backward societies are always those that put women down. "
Isabel Allende
Always
Down
Most
" I have learned many things in the 30 years that I have been writing. "
Isabel Allende
Things
Years
Writing
" I write to understand my circumstances, to sort out the confusion of reality, to exorcise my demons. But most of all, I write because I love it! "
Isabel Allende
Demons
Reality
Love
" From journalism I learned to write under pressure, to work with deadlines, to have limited space and time, to conduct and interview, to find information, to research, and above all, to use language as efficiently as possible and to remember always that there is a reader out there. "
Isabel Allende
Research
Work
Language
" 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
" On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in the United States. "
Isabel Allende
Me
Country
Leave
" I get thousands of letters, and they give me a feeling of how each book is perceived. Often I think I have written about a certain theme, but by reading the letters or reviews, I realise that everybody sees the book differently. "
Isabel Allende
Feeling
Me
Theme
" 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
" One of the characteristics of North American culture is that you can always start again. You can always move forward, cross a border of a state or a city or a county, and move West, most of the time West. You leave behind guilt, past traditions, memories. "
Isabel Allende
Time
Culture
City
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
World
Me
Family
" I get up every morning early, when the sky is red, and write for 10 hours. "
Isabel Allende
Up
Sky
Early
" Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you. "
Isabel Allende
Country
Landscape
People
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Up
Conflict
Air
" I never said I wanted a 'happy' life but an interesting one. From separation and loss, I have learned a lot. I have become strong and resilient, as is the case of almost every human being exposed to life and to the world. We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. "
Isabel Allende
World
Life
Strong
" I am an American citizen and it is my home now. I like the U.S.A., which is not a place too many people have liked since Bush. The U.S. has a young population, and everything can change within a year. "
Isabel Allende
Home
I Am
People
" 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. "
Isabel Allende
Society
American
Gun
" Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses. "
Isabel Allende
Interesting
Nice
People
" If you change the way you tell your own story, you can change the colour and create a life in technicolour. "
Isabel Allende
Own
Story
Life
" A man who cooks is very sexy. A woman who cooks is not that sexy. Because it's associated in our mind to the domestic cliche of the woman. "
Isabel Allende
Mind
Sexy
Who
" 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
" Writing is my job. I don't think of it as art. "
Isabel Allende
Art
Job
Writing
" 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
Nation
You
Strength
" Before the military coup in Chile, we had the idea that military coups happen in Banana Republics, somewhere in Central America. It would never happen in Chile. Chile was such a solid democracy. And when it happened, it had brutal characteristics. "
Isabel Allende
Military
America
Banana
" In the books I have written, I have created in my mind a universe. My kids say I have a village in my head and I live in that village, and it's true. When I start writing a book, characters from previous books reappear. All my emotions, my mind, my heart, my dreams, everything becomes connected with a new book, and nothing else really matters. "
Isabel Allende
Heart
Writing
Dreams
" 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
" Men's memoirs are about answers; women's memoirs are about questions. Most male authors want to look good in their memoirs and have a place in posterity, while most women know that posterity is what happens when you no longer care. Women want to connect with others here and now; they couldn't care less about legacy! "
Isabel Allende
Women
Men
Place
" My desk is like a 'U,' so I have my computer and lots of dictionaries because I write in Spanish and I live in English. "
Isabel Allende
Write
Because
Desk