I rebelled against all form of authority, against my grandfather, my step-father, the Church, the police, the government, the bosses. Everything male that was there, and was determining my life. – Isabel Allende
We want a world where life is preserved, and the quality of life is enriched for everybody, not only for the privileged. – Isabel Allende
I can’t control life for my grandchildren, so how could I control a story? Sometimes I try to force something, and after working and working on that chapter, I realise that I am swimming against the current. I will never get there. So I have to let go of whatever previous idea I had about it and let the characters decide. – Isabel Allende
I like historical fiction. I fell in love with New Orleans the first time I visited it. And I wanted to place a story in New Orleans. – Isabel Allende
Every life of a character is within a context. If I write detached from a social and political background, my story looks like a soap opera where everybody is indoors, not working and living off their emotions. – Isabel Allende
My mother didn’t want me to be a feminist, a radical, political person, because she was scared. She wanted me to be protected and safe, but my life never was. – Isabel Allende
I never try to give a message in my books. It’s about living with characters long enough to hear their voices and let them tell me the story. Sometimes I would love to have a happy ending, and it doesn’t happen because the character or the story leads me in another direction. – Isabel Allende
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
The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses. – Isabel Allende
I have a foot here and a foot in some spirit world. There are many more layers to reality, and that permeates my life and my writing in a very natural way. I don’t even think about it. – Isabel Allende
I love fiction because in fiction you go into the thoughts of people, the little people, the people who were defeated, the poor, the women, the children that are never in history books. – Isabel Allende
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
I have become an American citizen, and I love this country. I think that this country has incredible potential for goodness, an incredible possibility for doing the wrong thing, too. – Isabel Allende