Isabel Allende Quotes

لم أكن أعرف بعد أن الحزن لا يزول بالكامل أبدًا ، وأنه يبقى تحت الجلد ؛ ومن دونه ماكان لي اليوم أن أكون نفسي ، ولما استطعت التعرف على نفسي في المرآة

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

There’s a time to live and a time to die. In between there’s time to remember. That is all I’ve done for these past days, silently filling in the missing details to complete this testament — a sentimental legacy, more than a material one.

Most of my writing is an attempt to bring an illusory order to the natural chaos of life, to decode the mysteries of memory, to search for my own identity. I have been doing it for several years, and I have achieved none of the above. My life is as messy as it always has been; my memory still works in mysterious ways-plus I am losing it!-and I still don't have a clear idea of who I really am. Most people would come to the same conclusion. We evolve, change, age. Nobody is carved in stone, except the very pompous or self-righteous.

“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” (p162)

​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.

If nothing hurts, that means I woke up dead,

It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail...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 out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us.

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.

She felt that everything was made of glass, as fragile as a sigh... (p430)

Teresa said that until men gave birth and put up with husbands, as women do, they should not have an opinion - let alone decide on - abortion and divorce. She didn't believe that men had the right to an opinion, much less to pass laws on the female body, since they'd never know the exhaustion of gestation, the pain of labor, and the eternal bondage of motherhood.

Detente, sombra de mi amor esquivo, imagen del hechizo que más quiero, bella ilusión por quien alegre muero, dulce ficción por quien penosa vivo. SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ

I was influenced by all of them-by García Márquez, by Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, José Donoso, so many of them-some of my own generation, like Eduardo Galeano. It's easy for me to write because I don't have to invent anything. They already found a voice, a way of telling us to ourselves, so it's easy. (1994)

"كل واحد يختار درجة اللون كي يحكي قصّته الخاصة؛ و بودّي أن اختار الوضوح الدائم لصورة مطبوعة بالبلاتين .. لكن ما من شيء في قدري يملك هذه الخاصّية المضيئة ؛أعيش بين صبغات باهتة وألغاز مخفيّة و عدم يقين .. واللون المناسب لرواية حياتي ينطبق أكثر مع لون صورة حائلة صورة "بالسبيا" ."

...and on the date stipulated by law the left calmly came to power. And on that date the right began to stockpile hatred. (p392)