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 learned very quickly that when you emigrate, you lose the crutches that have been your support; you must begin from zero, because the past is erased with a single stroke and no one cares where you’re from or what you did before.
Interpretation
Emigrating means starting anew, leaving behind past support systems and identities.
This quote by Isabel Allende highlights the profound experience of emigration, emphasizing that individuals who move to a new country often face the challenge of starting fresh. They lose the familiar supports from their past, must rebuild their lives from scratch, and often find that their previous accomplishments and identities do not matter to those in their new environment.
In practice
In a speech about the immigrant experience at a community event.
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.
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.
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.
My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.
I'm interested in people who have to overcome obstacles, people who are not sheltered by the umbrella of the establishment, marginals.
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.
Who would have thought that the girl who was forced to go to the hospital because she's so skinny would one day be called too fat?
Each one of us can make a difference. Together we make change.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.
The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.
My own life in India, since I came to it in 1893 to make it my home, has been devoted to one purpose, to give back to India her ancient freedom.
How do you change the world? One room at a time. Which room? The one you're in.
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