Quotes from Isabel Allende

In Chile it is bad manners to acknowledge that you're overly satisfied, because that can irritate the less fortunate, which is why for us the correct answer to the question "How are you?" is "So-so." That is an opening for sympathizing with the other speaker's situation.

My grandmother claimed that space is filled with presences, the dead and the living all mixed together.

The reality is that everyone is responsible for their own life. We're dealt certain cards at birth, and we play our hand; some of us lose, but others may play skillfully from the same bad hand and triumph.

I wait for you to complete the voyage into yourself, for the old wounds to heal. I know that when you return from your nightmares, we shall again walk hand in hand, as before.

But that's how nostalgia is: a slow dance in a large circle. Memories don't organize themselves chronologically, they're like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion.

AND SINCE we're talking about nostalgia, I beg you to have a little patience with what follows because I can't separate the subject of Chile from my own life. My past is composed of passions, surprises, successes, and losses: it isn't easy to relate in two or three sentences.

Life was beautiful, and America was truly "the land of the free and the home of the brave," a land where someone like Gregory could become President; all you had to do was stay pure of heart, love God and your mother, be forever faithful to one girl, respect the law, defend the weak, and scorn money—because heroes never expected to be compensated.

Even though the majority of Chileans, especially the entire middle class, supported him. Parliament (again the parliament!) made it difficult for him to govern; it forced him to resign his position and exiled him to Europe.

People come and go, and even the closest members of the family eventually disperse. It's useless to cling to anybody or anything because everything in the universe tends toward separation, chaos, and entropy, not cohesion. I have chosen a simpler life, with fewer material things and more leisure, fewer worries and more fun, fewer social commitments and more true friendship, less fuss and more silence.

Dance. Dance, Zarité. The slave who dances is free while he is dancing.' He told me. I have always danced.

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.

She learned to bear her troubles alone and with dignity, convinced no one was interested in other people's problems, and that pain borne in silence eventually evaporated.