Isabel Allende Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• 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

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Muse, Shows

  "Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do". Book by Meredith Maran, 2013.

• Write what should not be forgotten.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Forgotten, Should

  Isabel Allende, William Knowlton Zinsser (1989). “Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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.

  Isabel Allende

  Loyalty, Writing, Issues

• If I didn't write my soul would dry up and die.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Dry Up, Soul

• 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.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Too Much, Persons

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

  Isabel Allende

  Love, Dream, Writing

• Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Worry, Making Love

• That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures, giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination, creating some kind of truth with many lies.

  Isabel Allende

  Lying, Writing, Tired

• I write to understand my circumstances, to sort out the confusion of reality, to exorcise my demons. But most of all, I write because I love it!

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Reality, Confusion

• Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.

  Isabel Allende

  Memories, Writing, Journey

• From journalism I learned to write under pressure, to work with deadlines, to have limited space and time, to conduct and interview, to find information, to research, and above all, to use language as efficiently as possible and to remember always that there is a reader out there.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Space, Pressure

• Writing is a constant exercise in longing.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Exercise, Longing

  Twitter post from May 19, 2014

• The first two, three, four weeks are wasted. I just show up in front of the computer. 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.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Two, Three

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

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Stories, Ends

  "Tales of passion". TED Talks, www.ted.com. March, 2007.

• After a few months without writing, months I've lived turned outward... I fear going deaf, not being able to hear the silence.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Silence, Able

• As I travel through life, I gather experiences that lie imprinted on the deepest strata of memory, and there they ferment, are transformed, and sometimes rise to the surface and sprout like strange plants from other worlds. What is the fertile humus of the subconscious composed of? Why are certain images converted into recurrent themes in nightmares or writing?

  Isabel Allende

  Memories, Lying, Writing

• January 8 has been a lucky day for me. I have started all my books on that day, and all of them have been well received by the readers. I write eight to ten hours a day until I have a first draft, then I can relax a little. I am very disciplined. I write in silence and solitude. I light a candle to call inspiration and the muses, and I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, dead and alive.

  Isabel Allende

  Book, Inspiration, Writing

• write with honesty and don't worry about the feelings of others, because no matter what you say, they'll hate you anyway.

  Isabel Allende

  Honesty, Hate, Writing

• I was such a sullen, angry, sad kid. I'm sure there are writers who have had happy childhoods, but what are you going to write about? No ghosts, no fear. I'm very happy that I had an unhappy and uncomfortable childhood.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Kids, Childhood

  "California dreaming" by Anita Sethi, www.theguardian.com. April 23, 2008.

• I get hundreds of emails daily and a lot of feedback from people that are reading or have read my books. When I'm writing, or in my daily life, I just think of the work. I love to tell a story, but I might work with a story to make it the best I can without thinking of how many people will read it or if it will influence anybody.

  Isabel Allende

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Interview with Collier Meyerson, www.lennyletter.com. January 15, 2016.

• There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized.

  Isabel Allende

  Memories, Lying, Writing

  Interview with Jordan E. Rosenfeld, www.writersdigest.com. August 27, 2008.

• You write a book and it's like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don't know if it will ever reach any shores. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.

  Isabel Allende

  Ocean, Book, Fall

• A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Exercise, Mirrors

• I've been a foreigner for the past twenty years. I don't have roots anymore. My roots are in my memory and my writing. That's why memory is so important. Who are you but what you can remember?

  Isabel Allende

  Memories, Writing, Past

• Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Names, Forgotten

  Isabel Allende, William Knowlton Zinsser (1989). “Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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