Isabel Allende Quotes about Writing

Write what should not be forgotten.

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

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

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

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.

When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story. But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader's heart.

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?

Having a point to start is important. You know that when you decide to write something it's like a commitment. It's like falling in love.

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.

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.

No complaining about how hard it is to write, we are all so, so lucky to write, to sit down, inside, and write words on paper. There is no greater freedom, no greater good, nothing that brings more joy.

What happens in the world affects me. Sometimes, that's part of the writing.

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

My grandfather was dying, and told the family he had decided to die. ... At that moment I wanted so badly to write and tell him that he was never going to die, that somehow he would always be present in my life, because he had a theory that death didn't exist, only forgetfulness did. He believed that if you can keep people in your memory, they will live forever. That's what he did with my grandmother.

Writing is a constant exercise in longing.

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!

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

If you write nonfiction, a historical account of what really happened, first of all, it's always White men who do that and you don't have the voices that are really interesting to me, of the people who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment.

I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it.

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.

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.

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.

The first few months of my life of every year are in total retreat. I don't see anybody except my husband and my dog, I don't talk to anybody, and I just write.

Before I start writing, before I have an idea of where and when the story happens, I research it thoroughly.

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.