Isabel Allende Quotes

I have lived with passion and in a hurry, trying to accomplish too many things. I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year, and I took care of her at home until she died in my arms in December of 1992.

I decided to quit 'Survivor: All-Stars' in order to be closer to my mother, who ended up passing away from breast cancer seven days after I returned home.

After the turbulence of death, moral principles and even religious proofs are called into question.

When you are confronted with a level of devastating disease and death, you never lose that sense of unbelievable humility.

Your father has to die, better he dies in your arms.

I knew that my father was going to die of heart disease, and I was trying to make a heart for him.

When my father died of cancer in 1991, he left me with the assurance that he was headed to a better place. He used to always tell me that I was getting the raw end of the deal because I had to stick around here.

I know when my parents passed away, I wanted all the support I could get.

A man suffers death himself as often as he loses those dear to him.

Cancer is awful. It took 10 years until I didn't think about it every day. Nobody should go through this. Nobody.

I remember burying a girl fourteen years of age who had died with a ruptured appendix... I buried a good many people that I knew, some of whom I loved.

I lost my mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and we had to relocate my dad after 58 years in the family home. That was tough.

When you go through a long illness, certainly one of cancer, there's a certain release from it and relief that it has come to an end, because the suffering can be unbearable, as opposed to an abrupt stop to life when they go out the door and there's a loved one who never comes home because of some accident.

And from my place, and from the time that I went through my divorce, I also had my father pass away in the middle of all that. And it kind of made everything else just kind of like the back burner, you know.

When my wife got sick, I didn't understand why God was doing what he was doing.

My father died of brain cancer in 1991. I do not know anyone whose life has not been touched by the loss of a loved one to cancer. I wrote my book 'Gracefully Gone' about my father's fight and my struggle growing up with an ill parent. I wrote it to help others know they are not alone in this all-too-often insurmountable war against cancer.

Animals have a much better attitude to life and death than we do. They know when their time has come. We are the ones that suffer when they pass, but it's a healing kind of grief that enables us to deal with other griefs that are not so easy to grab hold of.

I don't know why Alzheimer's was allowed to steal so much of my father before releasing him into the arms of death. But I know that at his last moment, when he opened his eyes, eyes that had not opened for many, many days, and looked at my mother, he showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love.

I grew up in a house full of faith, and my mother died when I was a little girl, and I found comfort in my faith.

In about an 18-month period, my mother got sick and died, and then I had a freak illness less than a year later and almost died myself. And I found in both of those situations that there was this expectation to have a kind of transformative experience.

We all had lots of stories of our sad experiences - they mourned the death of my wife with me - but we were hopeful that the children would return.

Cancer is the great equalizer. Everyone is affected by it either themselves or through loved ones.

A surgeon is surrounded by people who are sick, discouraged, afraid, embittered, dying - but also courageous, loving, wise, compassionate and alive.

'Hard Hit,' a YA collection of poems, explores the country of grief and survival. Mark, a 16-year-old boy and skilled pitcher, must confront the coming death of his beloved father with the help of his friends, family, baseball, and an idiosyncratic belief in God. I used my own experience of my parents' deaths to inform this journey.