On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in...

My desk is like a ‘U,’ so I have my computer and lots of dictionaries because I write in Spanish and I live in English.

Eros is very close to death. And both things, in a way, balance each other.

I was a lousy journalist. I could never be objective. Sometimes I invented the whole story.

Esa noche creí que había perdido para siempre la capacidad de enamorarme, que nunca más podría reírme ni perseguir una ilusión. Pero nunca más es mucho tiempo.

Mediante la fotografía y la palabra escrita intento desesperadamente vencer la condición fugaz de mi existencia, atrapar los momentos antes de que se desvanezcan, despejar la confusión de mi pasado.

…she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had.

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...

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...

Give, give, give – what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don’t give it away? Of having stories if I don’t tell them to others? Of having wealth if I...

I’m a writer. In Latin America, they say I’m a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here,...

Nations should be governed by a council of learned men who must answer to the people for their actions.

What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.

Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.

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...

In the United States, the fact that you can start again gives a lot of energy and strength and youth to this country. That is why it’s so powerful in many ways, and so creative.

But I don’t want more things than I need, either.

How many times have I told you not to believe everything you hear? Seek truth for yourself.

But why give a man something it’s so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They’re the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don’t realize that...

Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you.

The poorest and most backward societies are always those that put women down.

I speak English and Spanish. I write in Spanish; my books are published in English.

Unfortunately for my family, they have a writer in the family.

El exiliado mira hacia el pasado, lamiéndose las heridas; el inmigrantemira hacia el futuro, dispuesto a aprovechar las oportunidades a su alcance.

They could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another.

We only have what we give.

Men’s memoirs are about answers; women’s memoirs are about questions. Most male authors want to look good in their memoirs and have a place in posterity, while most women know that posterity is what happens...

I have lived with passion and in a hurry, trying to accomplish too many things. I never had time to think about my beliefs until my 28-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a...

I’m very optimistic because I think that the real strength of a nation like the United States comes from blending cultures. There’s no way that you can close the frontiers anywhere. The borders are there...

Everything I write has to be connected to my life. One of the things that always comes up in my writing is the search for freedom, especially in women.

Francisco l’attrasse a sé e le cercò le labbra. Fu un bacio casto, tiepido, lieve tuttavia ebbe l’effetto di una scossa tellurica nei loro sensi. Entrambi percepirono la pelle dell’altro prima mai così precisa e...

My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.

Kids are smart: don’t underestimate their bull detector. Contemporary kids have access to a lot of information, so don’t even try to fool them. I have never been more nervous about my research than when...

Twittering and blogging and all that is fine, but there is no idea of how to phrase something beautifully; how to use language to create an emotion. It’s just passing information and sometimes very superficial...

Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don’t think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.

He understood then that all his exploits as a reporter, the feats that had won him such recognition and fame, were merely an attempt to keep his most ancient fears at bay, a stratagem for...

[D]as Gedächtnis [ist] schwach und der Lauf eines Lebens kurz und alles [geschieht] so rasch, dass wir den Zusammenhang zwischen den Ereignissen nicht mehr sehen, die Folgen der Taten nicht mehr ermessen können, wir glauben...

The fear is not real, Dil Bahadur; it is only in your mind, like all other things. Our thoughts form what we believe to be reality.

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature...

Writing is a calling, not a choice.

I’m living in California but I have a place that is mine in Chile and I belong there. I am no longer an exile.

I get up every morning early, when the sky is red, and write for 10 hours.

Más o menos cada diez años echo una mirada hacia el pasado y puedo ver el mapa de mi viaje, si es que esopuede llamarse un mapa; parece más bien un plato de tallarines. Si...

I have a hundred-year-old aunt who aspires to sainthood, and whose only wish has been to go into the convent, but no congregation, not even the Little Sisters of Charity, could tolerate her for more...

Lo único que va a sanarte es el amor, siempre que le des cabida.

If this world is going to be a better place for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it will be women who make it so.

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.

A memoir is my version of events. My perspective. I choose what to tell and what to omit. I choose the adjectives to describe a situation, and in that sense, I’m creating a form of...

I don’t think the world will destroy itself in a nuclear cataclysm. On the contrary, we have the capacity to save ourselves and save the planet, and we will use it.

Era ella quien se abría como una sandía madura, roja, jugosa, tibia, ella quien sudaba esa fragancia penetrante de mariscos, ella quien lo mordía, lo arañaba, lo chupaba, gemía, agonizaba de sofoco y de placer....