Quotes from Isabel Allende

After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence.

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

Today the nanas have become so emancipated that the lords of their domains prefer to hire illegal immigrants from Peru, whom they can mistreat as badly as they used to their Chilean servant girls.

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.

I think you'll see that my life story is worthy of a novel, because of my sins more than my virtues.

I like fabrics, colors, makeup, and the routine of putting myself together every morning, even though I spend most of my time locked away in the attic writing. "No one sees me, but I see myself," my mother would comment philosophically

Gringos invented two terms that are untranslatable into most languages: "snack" and "quickie," to refer to eating standing up and loving on the run . . . that, too, sometimes standing up.

All husbands are boring, John. No woman with an ounce of sense gets married to be entertained, she marries to be maintained.

Since 1973, the year of the military coup that changed so many things, situating has become a little more complex because in the first three minutes of conversation you also have to guess whether the person you're speaking to was for or against the dictatorship.

Cathy told her that the most important thing in life was to clean up one's own mess, commit oneself a hundred percent to reality, place all one's energy in the present moment, and to do so right now, immediately.

I go, but I always remember you.

And that fox escaped with his tail between his legs, with all of the hens chasing after him