Isabel Allende Quotes

I am almost equal to a shadow.

I am about as detailed as a shadow.

Do you believe in spirits? Or ghosts?...Yes, I do. I believe in ghosts....They're the ones who haunt us. The ones who have left us behind." "Vivian has come back to the idea that the people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our ordinary moments. They're with us in the grocery store, as we turn the corner, chat with a friend. They rise up through the pavement; we absorb them through our soles." "The things that matter stay with you, seep into your skin.

Goddess” he said. Her voice floated to us. Yes, Child.” Will I see you again?” Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet

A book has got to smell. You have to hold it in your hands and pray to it.

A script is a very rough material in a way. Whatever questions you might have regarding the script, you might find the beginning of the answers in the book.

How happily, said Austerlitz, have I sat over a book in the deepening twilight until I could no longer make out the words and my mind began to wander, and how secure have I felt seated at the desk in my house in the dark night, just watching the tip of my pencil in the lamplight following its shadow, as if of its own accord and with perfect fidelity, while that shadow moved regularly from left to right, line by line, over the ruled paper.

Don't equate the presence of God with a good mood or a pleasant temperament. God is near whether you are happy or not.

There is a practice that is most powerful in keeping us united with God. That practice is the constant recollection of His presence.

I never really got the book together for the thing, so I had all the songs and the characters. But by the time we'd gotten it on the road and I'd been doing it for 18 months, oh God, I couldn't wait to move on to something else.

Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

The substance of my being has been informed by the books I learned to care for.

Authors have to write for their characters, for who they are, that's the strength of books. Don't worry about censors. Just write the story you need to tell and the rewards will come.

I always thought the front line was the bookstores. And bookstores around America, around the world did astonishingly well. They held the line. They didn't chicken out. You know, they defended the book. They kept it in the front of the store.

When you want to put something into your part that is not in the play, you must ask the author-or some other author-to lead up to the interpolation for you. Never forget that the effect of a line may depend not on its delivery, but on something said earlier in the play, either by somebody else or by yourself, and that if you change it, it may be necessary to change the whole first act as well.

If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them -- you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.

I always find with my stories that the way they start is that I just get so interested in a person that I'm compelled to go back to them over and over until I learn more and more about them, without even quite thinking it's material for a book.

I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

Lots of kids in books are only-child orphans, but I think it’s fun to have family as part of the adventure, to have familial love be as important as romantic love, and to show that love can go through fire and darkness - not unchanged, because experiences like that change everyone - but never faltering

He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble. from the Book of Proverbs

It was a basic plot in any number of her books: girl strikes out, makes good, finds love, gets revenge. In that order. The making good and striking out part I liked. The rest would just be bonus.

Having read the source material, I had to have drawn from that. As a fan, I wanted to remain true to that character, but it was really cool because, as we were figuring these characters out, I realized that there was a lot more backstory, rather than what I had gotten just from reading the book. Glenn doesn't really get much of a backstory there. He's just seen as this kid who is put in this situation, not knowing where his mind-set is, but then you slowly see him start to develop.

We all have spirits present with us who are feeling the way we are.

For me, listening to my breath in between the lines, allows me to be in deep connection to my spirit.