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.
Isabel AllendeRead
I try to let go of the intellect and just tell the story. I only read the page I have in front of me on the screen. Then when the whole story is told, I print it, wait a week and read it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of storytelling over analytical thought in the creative process.
Isabel Allende expresses a deep reliance on instinct and spontaneity in her writing, suggesting that the essence of storytelling comes from engaging directly with the narrative rather than overthinking it. By focusing solely on the page in front of her, she allows the story to unfold naturally, which she believes enhances the authenticity and flow of her work when revisited after some time.
Themes
StorytellingCreativityIntellectWritingFlow
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, one might say, 'As Isabel Allende suggests, let go of your intellect and just tell the story.'
More from Isabel Allende
All quotes →My mother is a great artist, but she always treated her paintings like minor postcards. Had she pursued it, she would have been a great artist. Instead, she looked down on her art.
Isabel AllendeRead
I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
Isabel AllendeRead
My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.
Isabel AllendeRead
I'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles, people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals.
Isabel AllendeRead
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, so I'm also an American writer.
Isabel AllendeRead
Similar quotes
Photography speaks a universal language that does not need translation, and with an immediacy that the written word lacks. It freezes a moment in time, leaving an indelible image.
Bianca JaggerRead
Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.
Steven SpielbergRead
Whatever the thing you wish to say, there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it; you must seek until you find this noun, this verb, this adjective.
Gustave FlaubertRead
The telling of stories, like singing and praying, would seem to be an almost ceremonial act, an ancient and necessary mode of speech that tends the earthly rootedness of human language. For narrated events always happen somewhere. And for an oral culture, that location is never merely incidental to those occurrences. The events belong, as it were, to the place, and to tell the story of those events is to let the place itself speak through the telling.
David AbramRead
We live in capitalism, and capitalism is defined by the production line, and the production line is defined by specificity. If you see yourself as an artist, which I do, then you can't be limited by that. You can't let somebody tell you, 'Well, you can only draw this kind of picture or write that kind of book.'
Walter MosleyRead
Design is the term we use to describe both the process and the result of giving tangible form to human ideas. Design doesn't just contribute to the quality of life; design, in many ways, now constitutes the quality of life.
Peter LawrenceRead