Junot Diaz Quotes

Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.

When she smiles niggers ask her for her hand in marriage; when I smile folks check their wallets.

Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.

Out of nowhere you said, I love you. For whatever it's worth.

I think that if you're writing about the human condition, my God, you've got to start at base: point zero, point one, is the body.

Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.

An ear will never do you wrong, but I know writers who... most of the language they use is just extracted language from other languages they've read. I am a big-time reader, but I mix and match.

You're Dominican only if you do this, this, and that. And if you do this and that, you'll be accepted to a certain degree and if you don't, people will scorn you for it.

You can't be a human without seeing.

I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.

Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.

To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.

We're accepted as long as we conform to what we are expected to be, and I'm sure that's not any different for anyone else.

I'm having so much trouble with writing. Maybe if I help other people, it'll be easier for me.

This country wants to live in the illusion that it is tolerant but also wants to be able to practice intolerance.

Of course we all know that's not how life works. The novel that is our life can end at any time. Sometimes even on page one.

Used to be in the old days, only the pulp writers wrote like machines. Now everybody is expected to be literary John Henrys. So in that context someone like me is an anomaly.

For me, the battle isn't Hillary [Clinton] vs. [Bernie] Sanders. And I understand that for some people that's the battle. But for me, more than anything, it's stopping a Republican president.

We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.

The people I know who would support [Donald] Trump are keeping their mouths shut.

Honestly, connecting once at the deepest level with someone, you know, once you've done that, even if your life goes to hell, man, it was really worth living.

Love is the only thing - I don't want to say that "makes it bearable" - but I feel like without the possibility of love, this place would just devour us.

People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong.