Isabel Allende Quotes

"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome."

"Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you."

"I am happier when I love than when I am loved. I adore my husband, my son, my grandchildren, my mother, my dog, and frankly, I don't know if they even like me. But who cares? Loving them is my joy."

"What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse."

"Today's girls are tomorrow's women - and leaders."

"Heart is what drives us and determines our fate."

"I can promise you that women working together - linked, informed and educated - can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet."

"Kids are smart: don't underestimate their bull detector. Contemporary kids have access to a lot of information, so don't even try to fool them. I have never been more nervous about my research than when writing for young adults because they pick up every single error."

"Feminism is not dead, by no means. It has evolved. If you don't like the term, change it, for Goddess' sake. Call it Aphrodite, or Venus, or bimbo, or whatever you want; the name doesn't matter, as long as we understand what it is about, and we support it."

"My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief."

"I have not changed; I am still the same girl I was fifty years ago and the same young woman I was in the seventies. I still lust for life, I am still ferociously independent, I still crave justice, and I fall madly in love easily."

"Everybody has losses - it's unavoidable in life. Sharing our pain is very healing."

"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."

"We want a world where life is preserved, and the quality of life is enriched for everybody, not only for the privileged."

"My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses."

"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."

"Unfortunately for my family, they have a writer in the family."

"If I didn't write my soul would dry up and die."

"If I can write it, I can cope. And I've been writing many books, but in every book, I try to explore something in my own soul that I need to solve, I need to understand."

"I get up every morning early, when the sky is red, and write for 10 hours."

"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."

"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."

"I have learned many things in the 30 years that I have been writing."

"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."

"Everything that has to do with food is sensuous. In the United States, however, we are eating all the time. We have a problem with obesity. And yet, we don't enjoy food that much."

"I like historical fiction. I fell in love with New Orleans the first time I visited it. And I wanted to place a story in New Orleans."

"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."

"Eros is very close to death. And both things, in a way, balance each other."

"Feminism has never been sexy, but let me assure you that it never stopped me from flirting, and I have seldom suffered from lack of men."

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