Isabel Allende Book Quotations

Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks.

I don't read thrillers, romance or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes.

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.

In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband.

The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing.

This book gave me back the passionate optimism of my youth. This young generation of women will have a tremendous impact on the future.

In my book tours I get to meet an audience every night. And I see that there are mostly young people, and there are a lot of more men than before, but always young, I don't get older men. As I'm getting older, my audience gets younger!

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.

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.

When I'm scared - and I'm always scared when I have to face an audience, when I have to read a review, when I publish a book...then, I think of my grandfather. My grandfather was this strong, tough Basque who would never bend....What would he do? Well, he would go ahead, close his eyes, and drive forward. You do it and the spirit that is within you....is there.

A book is not an end in itself; it is only a way to touch someone - a bridge extended across a space of loneliness and obscurity - and sometimes it is a way of winning other people to our causes.

The one that came really easy was the Japanese lover, because he's like a ghost in the book. He's always in the background like a spirit, like a shadow, almost. There's a very delicate line there.

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.

I'm not a fan of mysteries, so to prepare for this experience of writing a mystery I started reading the most successful ones in the market in 2012. ... And I realized I cannot write that kind of book. It's too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there's no redemption there.

More and more books are published every year. If people were not reading them, they wouldn't be published. We are now reading electronic books or whatever else, but people are still reading, and people still need stories.

My books are based on emotions, feelings, relationships. In these areas women are experts, so it's not strange that the main characters of my novels are females.

I should say that I'm not conscious of any particular style or any particular literary device when I am writing. I have written 22 books, and they are all very different. I have tried all kinds of genres.

My books are written from personal experience, from memories, and from stories that come to me from all places.