Isabel Allende Quotes

There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain.

Aphrodite is about lust and gluttony - the only two sins worth committing, in my opinion.

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

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.

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

It is a wonderful truth that things we want most in life-a sense of purpose, happiness and hope-are most easily attained by giving them to others.

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

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.

Heart is what drives us and determines our fate.

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

You only have what you give. It’s by spending yourself that you become rich.

For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power, and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men.

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

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up

All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them. Certain themes keep coming up: justice, loyalty, violence, death, political and social issues, freedom.

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.

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.

Write what should not be forgotten.

You spend the first part of your life collecting things ... and the second half getting rid of them.

We only have what we give.

...when everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars

I love fiction because in fiction you go into the thoughts of people, the little people, the people who were defeated, the poor, the women, the children that are never in history books.

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

Sisters: talk to each other, be connected and informed, form women's circles, share your stories, work together, and take risks. Together we are invincible.

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

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

The two moments are much alike: birth and death are made of the same fabric.

I'm aware of the mystery around us, so I write about coincidences, premonitions, emotions, dreams, the power of nature, magic.

When you make an omelet, as when you make love, affection counts for more than technique.

if we don't begin by imagining the perfect society, how shall we create one?

In my lifetime, the world has become better, not worse. And the world is moving, very slowly but surely with more democracy and more liberal way of thinking, more inclusion and more diversity.

Nothing's as dangerous as power with impunity.

Peace requires everyone to be in the circle - wholeness, inclusion.

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

Many children fly like birds, guess other people's dreams, and speak with ghosts, but ... they all outgrow it when they lose their innocence.

I don't think I would be a writer if I had stayed in Chile. I would be trapped in the chores, in the family, in the person that people expected me to be.

What is truer than truth? Answer: the story.

We don't have an explanation for everything that happens. We don't control almost anything. And if we are not open to that mystery, life becomes so small.

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.

How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?

All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them.

The fear is not real, Dil Bahadur; it is only in your mind, like all other things. Our thoughts form what we believe to be reality.

Those who seek the truth run the risk of finding it.

A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot.

I'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles, people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals.

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.

True friendship resists time, distance and silence.

Having a point to start is important. You know that when you decide to write something it's like a commitment. It's like falling in love.

In terrible moments, in moments of revolution, of war or repression, of illness or death, people react with incredible strength.

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 . . .