Isabel Allende

It is a wonderful truth that things we want most in life-a sense of purpose, happiness and hope-are most easily attained by giving them to others.

You couldn't find two people more different than my mother and I. There are a thousand things about me that she fought against.

I write a letter to my mother every day, because in that letter, I write down my day. And if I don't write it down, then tomorrow I will forget it and it's gone.

I remember my childhood as a horrible time. My mother says that nothing so horrible ever happened to me as the things that I remember.

One of the characteristics of North American culture is that you can always start again. You can always move forward, cross a border of a state or a city or a county, and move West, most of the time West. You leave behind guilt, past traditions, memories.

If I can write it, I can cope. And I've been writing many books, but in every book, I try to explore something in my own soul that I need to solve, I need to understand.

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 information.

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

I get thousands of letters, and they give me a feeling of how each book is perceived. Often I think I have written about a certain theme, but by reading the letters or reviews, I realise that everybody sees the book differently.

The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela, where I couldn't find a place for myself, for years and years.

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

When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.

A novel is like a window, open to an infinite landscape.

My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief.

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

I come from the so-called Third World (what is the Second)?

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 don't share it? I don't intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine.

What is truer than truth? Answer: the story.

If you change the way you tell your own story, you can change the colour and create a life in technicolour.

I have travelled all over the world and one thing that amazes me is that I can communicate with people. My story may be different but emotionally we are all the same.

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