Isabel Allende citations

“Perhaps we are in this world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again. With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars.”

“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”

“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not.”

“I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but also in the elusive forms of reality.”

“Be careful what you ask of Heaven; it might be granted.”

“​Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is badly out of balance, in favor of men.”

“The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.”

“Write what should not be forgotten.”

“The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.”

“Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are.”

“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.”

“We only have what we give.”

“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.”

“You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found.”

“you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction”

“Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.”

“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.”

“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice.”

“Erotica is using a feather; pornograpy is using the whole chicken.”

“He had only to touch me to turn my tears into sighs and my anger to desire. How accomodating love is; it forgives everything.”

“The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear…”

“Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.”

“When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.”

“If I write something, I fear it will happen, and if I love too much, I fear I will lose that person; nevertheless, I cannot stop writing or loving…”

“Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.”

“And I am not one of those women who trips twice over the same stone.”

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”