Julia Alvarez Quotes

• The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

  Julia Alvarez

  Motivational, Inspiring, Kindness

  126 Copy quote

• Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

  Julia Alvarez

  Choices, Versions

  125 Copy quote

• I write to find out what I am thinking.
  I write to find out who I am.
  I write to understand things.

  Julia Alvarez

  Writing, Thinking, Who I Am

  109 Copy quote

• It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

  Julia Alvarez

  Writing, Together, World

  Julia Alvarez (2007). “Before We Were Free”, p.44, Laurel Leaf

  124 Copy quote

• Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

  Julia Alvarez

  Littles, Surprise, Plans

  Julia Alvarez (2010). “In the Time of the Butterflies”, p.76, Algonquin Books

  78 Copy quote

• A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

  Julia Alvarez

  Heart, Historical, Way

  Julia Alvarez (2010). “In the Time of the Butterflies”, p.324, Algonquin Books

  118 Copy quote

• A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

  Julia Alvarez

  Book, Doe, Literature

  96 Copy quote

• Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

  Julia Alvarez

  Strong, Self, Needs

  74 Copy quote

• As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure.

  Julia Alvarez

  Mother, Teacher, Writing

  58 Copy quote

• I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

  Julia Alvarez

  Struggle, Mean, Love Is

  Julia Alvarez (2010). “In the Time of the Butterflies”, p.147, Algonquin Books

  53 Copy quote

• Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

  Julia Alvarez

  Book, Imagination, Passionate

  Source: ncac.org

  50 Copy quote

• Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness.

  Julia Alvarez

  School, Character, Issues

  Source: ncac.org

  46 Copy quote

• For me, the writing life doesn't just happen when I sit at the writing desk. It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in. 'My heart keeps open house,' was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem. And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world.

  Julia Alvarez

  Writing, Heart, Doors

  60 Copy quote

• I grew up in a dictatorship, where you couldn't talk about difficult situations - there was this culture of silence. We would run into a problem and have no one to talk to.

  Julia Alvarez

  Running, Difficult Situations, Silence

  Source: ncac.org

  47 Copy quote

• The elasticity of imagination and compassion is what writing and reading promote.

  Julia Alvarez

  Reading, Writing, Compassion

  Source: ncac.org

  33 Copy quote

• There is no end to what can be said about the world

  Julia Alvarez

  World, Ends, Said

  Julia Alvarez (1991). “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”, Algonquin Books

  44 Copy quote

• But the sensibility of the writer, whether fiction or poetry, comes from paying attention. I tell my students that writing doesn't begin when you sit down to write. It's a way of being in the world, and the essence of it is paying attention.

  Julia Alvarez

  Writing, Essence, World

  48 Copy quote

• When we read, even if the characters are tragic or sad or disturbing, these are our brothers and sisters in the human family.

  Julia Alvarez

  Brother, Character, Tragic

  Source: ncac.org

  24 Copy quote

• Independence didn't have to be exile.

  Julia Alvarez

  Independence, Exile

  28 Copy quote

• How we lie to ourselves when we've fallen in love with the wrong man.

  Julia Alvarez

  Lying, Men, Dating

  Julia Alvarez (1991). “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”, Algonquin Books

  34 Copy quote

• Reading and thoughtfulness and openness are the best way, I should think, to begin to address the richness that is in each of us.

  Julia Alvarez

  Reading, Thinking, Addresses

  Source: ncac.org

  19 Copy quote

• Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.

  Julia Alvarez

  Book, Reading, Difficult Situations

  Source: ncac.org

  26 Copy quote

• I think it is important to know how to teach new material to help young people grow and learn.

  Julia Alvarez

  Thinking, People, Important

  Source: ncac.org

  9 Copy quote

• Literature is about being a complex, contradictory human being.

  Julia Alvarez

  Literature, Contradictory, Humans

  Source: ncac.org

  24 Copy quote

• It's always gratifying to hear from a passionate reader, and as a longtime educator, I'm especially pleased and heartened when that reader is a young student who is inspired to write me and let me know that my book has helped him or her find her way.

  Julia Alvarez

  Book, Writing, Passionate

  Source: ncac.org

  24 Copy quote

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