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" In the United States, the fact that you can start again gives a lot of energy and strength and youth to this country. That is why it's so powerful in many ways, and so creative. "

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" For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power, and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men. "

Isabel Allende

Management

Change

Women

" 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

" I have more freedom when I write fiction, but my memoirs have had a much stronger impact on my readers. Somehow the 'message,' even if I am not even aware that there is one, is conveyed better in this form. "

" Empowering women means trusting them. "

" 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. "

Isabel Allende

Week

Wait

" I remember my childhood as a horrible time. My mother says that nothing so horrible ever happened to me as the things that I remember. "

Isabel Allende

Time

Childhood

" I feel that telling my secrets makes me less vulnerable. What would make me vulnerable are the secrets I keep. "

Isabel Allende

Telling

Secrets

" I read on my iPad when I travel. I listen to audiobooks in the car. I read books in my bedroom, where I have a comfortable couch, a lamp and two dogs to keep me warm. "

Isabel Allende

Listen

Comfortable

" I'm living in California but I have a place that is mine in Chile and I belong there. I am no longer an exile. "

" 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. "

" I want to have an epic life. I want to tell my life with big adjectives. I want to forget all the grays in between, and remember the highlights and the dark moments. "

" 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. "

Isabel Allende

Story

Be Different

" 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. "

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

" Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses. "

" I don't want an uneventful and safe life, I prefer an adventurous one. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I can't control life for my grandchildren, so how could I control a story? Sometimes I try to force something, and after working and working on that chapter, I realise that I am swimming against the current. I will never get there. So I have to let go of whatever previous idea I had about it and let the characters decide. "

" 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. "

" Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 like Hillary Clinton a lot. I know her. "

Isabel Allende

Hillary Clinton

Lot

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

" When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story. But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader's heart. "

" 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. "