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" 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
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" I write incredibly slowly. And, on top of that, I spent my entire youth and twenties working like a dog, so one of the things that happened when I finished 'Drown' was that I got busy living. I'd never travelled, I'd never seen anything. So I did as much travelling as my job teaching would allow. "
Junot Diaz
Busy
Job
Living
" I don't think I could have tackled 'The Pura Principle' until now. It takes me about twenty years to come to term with any difficult period in my life, to get enough of a grasp on it to fictionalize it. "
Junot Diaz
Think
Now
Enough
" Students teach all sorts of things but most importantly they make explicit the courage that it takes to be a learner, the courage it takes to open yourself to the transformative power of real learning and that courage I am exposed to almost every day at MIT and that I'm deeply grateful for. "
Junot Diaz
Day
Learning
Power
" I grew up in the shadow of the Trujillato, saw how the regime had ravaged so many families. "
Junot Diaz
How
Had
Many
" I guess I'm just hopelessly fascinated by the realities that you can assemble out of connected fragments. "
Junot Diaz
Just
Out
Guess
" We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. "
Junot Diaz
Dreams
Out
Will
" I've always thought that you don't love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that you love a country is by seeing everything that it's done wrong, all of its mistakes, and still thinking that it's beautiful and that it's worthy. "
Junot Diaz
Beautiful
Eye
Love
" Even if you didn't come from another country, the idea of how do you make a home somewhere new is common to anyone who's either going to college, shifting towns. "
Junot Diaz
Country
Going
Home
" 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
" 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
" 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
" So the kind of boy I was, or that I was told to be, you were kind of this like half-gladiator, half-dude who, you know, was supposed to have as many girls as possible and work until your heart exploded, have no fear, you know. "
Junot Diaz
You
Boy
Fear
" You know, I was a kid who had difficulty speaking English when I first immigrated. But in my head, when I read a book, I spoke English perfectly. No one could correct my Spanish. And I think that I retreated to books as a way, you know, to be, like, masterful in a language that was really difficult for me for many years. "
Junot Diaz
Language
Me
You
" I seem to enjoy telling stories with a central absence, with a lacuna tunnelled into them. "
Junot Diaz
Telling
Enjoy
Seem
" My thing is, I'm just way too harsh. It's an enormous impediment, and that's just the truth of it. It doesn't make me any better, make me any worse, it certainly isn't more valorous. I have a character defect, man. "
Junot Diaz
Me
Man
Character
" I'm just this Dominican kid from New Jersey. "
Junot Diaz
Jersey
New
Kid
" My greatest responsibility is to acknowledge the mistakes and the shortcomings of the country in which I live, to acknowledge my privileges, and to try to make it a better place. "
Junot Diaz
Live
Responsibility
Place
" 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
" I was part of that group of kids growing up in the '80s under the Reagan regime, what I used to call 'living in the shadow of Dr. Manhattan,' where we would have dreams all the time that New York City was being destroyed, and that that wall of light and destruction was rolling out and would just devour our neighborhood. "
Junot Diaz
Dreams
Shadow
Time
" I do think that we all draw limits and I feel like part of the work of an artist is it shouldn't be fun. This shouldn't be comfortable. I'm not looking to make people feel unsafe, but I am looking to make people feel uncomfortable. "
Junot Diaz
Fun
I Am
Looking
" One of the many characteristics of the new is that, at first, it's very hard to recognize it for what it is. We're lucky if we recognize something as being new when it first appears. Usually I think we don't have that privilege. It's usually after the fact that we suddenly turn around and say, 'Wow, this thing is amazing.' "
Junot Diaz
Lucky
Privilege
Think
" You never forget the discovery years. First kisses. The first time you try certain foods. "
Junot Diaz
You
Never Forget
Try
" In the end, all worlds, whether they're set in the future or in New Jersey of today, are fictions. Sure, you don't got to do too much work to build a mundane world, but don't get it twisted: you still got to do some work. "
Junot Diaz
You
Work
Today
" Infidelity raises profound questions about intimacy. "
Junot Diaz
About
Intimacy
Profound
" I was neither black enough for the black kids or Dominican enough for the Dominican kids. I didn't have a safe category. "
Junot Diaz
Safe
Category
Enough
" I'm sure I'm one of those undiagnosed people with social anxiety. "
Junot Diaz
Anxiety
People
Sure
" I mean, look, we're living in a country where you can't have a non-denominational response. If you're slightly critical of either party, all of the partisans jump on you like you're a lunatic. "
Junot Diaz
Living
Country
Look
" A young person, or someone who's writing in a different way - in some ways you could say, eventually someone will find them. Eventually someone will hear them. But it's good a lot of young people persevere. Because sometimes you have to send something out a thousand times before anyone recognizes your value. "
Junot Diaz
Value
Writing
You
" 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
" My thing is every generation of Americans has to answer what we call the 'Superman Question.' Superman comes, lands in America. He's illegal. He's one of these kids. He's wrapped up in a red bullfighter's cape. And you've got to decide what we're gonna do with Superman. "
Junot Diaz
Question
You
America