82 Isabel Allende Quotes From The Famous Magical Realism Author

Georgia Stone
Dec 12, 2023 By Georgia Stone
Originally Published on Feb 11, 2021
Edited by Jacob Fitzbright
A beautiful picture of Isabel Allende from an event
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Age: 0-99
Read time: 10.4 Min

Isabel Allende is a Chile-based author of the book 'The House Of Spirits', 1982.

She is one of the authors with a major focus on the concept of 'magical realism', a genre that has gained huge acknowledgment worldwide. She is also one of the widely read and recognized Spanish-language authors across the globe.

Isabel Allende once wrote, "write what should not be forgotten", and that is what most of her books and other work follow too. Work that is relatable to the modern world and is yet magical with its different elements can grab the others attention, especially women.

Her work has a hint of the feminism and her inclination towards social justice and the realities of harsh politics.

Along with being a strong woman of story and words, Isabel has a happy family, is a mother of two children.

Isabel Allende quotes about Chileans, writing, personal goals, life and more. "Roots are not in landscape or a country, or people, they are inside you", is one of Isabel Allende quotes in English that make an impact on the readers worldwide.

For more such impactful Isabel Allende quotes in books or food, life and love, check the list below. For related authors quotes check out 'The Color Purple' quotes and ['Eat Pray Love' quotes].

Isabel Allende Quotes About Life

Open bible on wood background

Being an author who can write for different characters, here are a few inspirational Isabel Allende Quotes that might make young women or a man too.

1. "You spend the first part of your life collecting things ... and the second half getting rid of them."

- Isabel Allende.

2. "There is no light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain."

- Isabel Allende.

3. "Humanity has this need to hear stories because they connect us with other people, they teach us about our own feelings."

- Isabel Allende.

4. "We feel less lonely when we see other people going through the same things, even if they're fictional characters."

- Isabel Allende.

5. "Fear is like a black cavern that is terrifying."

- Isabel Allende.

6. "Happiness is pure kitsch; we come into the world to suffer and learn."

- Isabel Allende.

7. "You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found."

- Isabel Allende.

8. "It is a wonderful truth that things we want most in life... are most easily attained by giving them to others."

- Isabel Allende.

9. "Real soup is to the body what peace is to the soul."

- Isabel Allende.

10. "Society decides when we get old. But the spirit never ages."

- Isabel Allende.

11. "Dying is not easy. It's a very hard transition."

- Isabel Allende.

12. "Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences."

- Isabel Allende.

13. "Wishes and fears are illusions... not realities. You must practice detachment."

- Isabel Allende.

Isabel Allende Quotes On Love

Every page of one's life, be it a mother, daughter, father, son or husband, everyone goes through the phase called 'love'.

14. "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."

- Isabel Allende.

15. "Heart is what drives us and determines our fate."

- Isabel Allende.

16. "Perhaps we are in this world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again. "

- Isabel Allende.

17. "I'm open to love, and I think that I will fall in love with a wonderful man."

- Isabel Allende.

18. "Writing is like making love. .."

- Isabel Allende.

19. "Affection is like the noonday sun; it does not need the presence of another to be manifest."

- Isabel Allende.

20. "You know that when you decide to write something it's like a commitment. It's like falling in love."

- Isabel Allende.

21. "True friendship resists time, distance and silence."

- Isabel Allende.

22. "You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell."

- Isabel Allende.

23. "The hardest thing of love is to let go."

- Isabel Allende.

24. "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."

- Isabel Allende.

25. "With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound."

- Isabel Allende.

26. "Love is a free contract that begins with a spark and can end the same way."

- Isabel Allende.

Isabel Allende Quotes From Books

Quotes by related authors always seem to engage in a way where turning the page of the book becomes an exciting act. These Isabel Allende quotes, author of the best books will make you feel excited.

27. "There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them."

- Isabel Allende, 'Eva Luna: A Novel', 1987.

28. "At my age, days dissolve like salt in water; the day's gone and I don't even know what I've done with the hours."

- Isabel Allende, 'The Infinite Plan: A Novel', 1991.

29. "Dying is like being born: just a change."

- Isabel Allende, 'The House Of The Spirits', 1982.

30. "The last time I was in Chile, I was hypnotized by a friend who is studying to be a curandero, a healer, who led me back through several incarnations..."

- Isabel Allende, 'My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile', 2003.

31. "We live in a world of small-mindedness, of gratification without happiness and actions without meaning."

- Isabel Allende, 'The Infinite Plan: A Novel', 1991.

32. "Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown."

- Isabel Allende, 'The House Of The Spirits', 1982.

33. "Photographs deceive time, freezing it on a piece of cardboard where the soul is silent."

- Isabel Allende, 'Of Love And Shadows: A Novel', 2016.

34. "How accommodating love is; it forgives everything."

- Isabel Allende, 'Inés Of My Soul', 2006.

35. "But I don't want more things than I need, either."

- Isabel Allende, 'Kingdom Of The Golden Dragon', 2003.

36. "Seated by her side in the narrow cabin, pressing cold compresses to her forehead and holding her while she vomited, he felt profoundly happy."

- Isabel Allende, 'The House Of The Spirits', 1982.

Isabel Allende Quotes On Writing

An author would be the best person to ever talk or share the wisdom about writing. These quotes by Isabel Allende on how to write will surely raise the spirits of that story creator in you.

37. "You can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction."

- Isabel Allende.

38. "All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them."

- Isabel Allende.

39. "Only in romance novels or in thrillers people live outside of a social and political context."

- Isabel Allende.

40. "Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me."

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

42. "I need to tell a story. It's an obsession."

- Isabel Allende.

43. "I have travelled all over the world, and one thing that amazes me is that I can communicate with people."

- Isabel Allende.

44. "Write what should not be forgotten."

- Isabel Allende.

45. "The writer of goodwill carries a lamp to illuminate the dark corners."

- Isabel Allende.

46. "I love fiction because in fiction you go into the thoughts of people..."

- Isabel Allende.

47. "Fiction happens in the womb. It doesn't get processed in the mind until you do the editing."

- Isabel Allende.

48. "A novel is achieved with hard work, the short story with inspiration."

- Isabel Allende.

49. "When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story."

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

51. "It's so important for me, finding the precise word that will create a feeling or describe a situation."

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

53. "The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night."

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

Isabel Allende Quotes On Personal Experiences

Personal experiences are important. A few related authors personal writing acts as inspiration. Check these social and life-time based quotes by Isabel Allende.

56. "The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything."

- Isabel Allende.

57. "I had a very rough childhood and not a happy one, and by age 15 I was an old person in many ways."

- Isabel Allende.

58. "My worst flaw is that I tell secrets, my own and everybody else's."

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

60. "I'm surrounded by young people. I'm always now the oldest and the shortest person in the room."

- Isabel Allende.

61. "We only have what we give."

- Isabel Allende.

62. "I'm such a control freak. I want to control even my own death. Decide when I will die and how."

- Isabel Allende.

63. "Give... what is the point of having experience, knowledge or talent if I don't give it away?"

- Isabel Allende.

64. "And I am not one of those women who trips twice over the same stone."

- Isabel Allende.

65. "The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential."

- Isabel Allende.

66. "Words are not that important when you recognize intentions."

- Isabel Allende.

67. "You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend, or not."

- Isabel Allende.

68. "Most people feel younger than their age, but the culture values youth, success, beauty, productivity..."

- Isabel Allende.

69. "A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot."

- Isabel Allende.

70. "I don't want an uneventful and safe life, I prefer an adventurous one."

- Isabel Allende.

71. "Writers speak for those who are kept in silence"

- Isabel Allende.

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

- Isabel Allende.

Isabel Allende Quotes About Food For Thought

Authors are the best people to come up with food for their hungry fiction-focused mind. Here are a few quotes for the curious child in you to feel motivated to work on a story or two of your own.

73. "In times of conflict... women and children are the first and most numerous victims."

- Isabel Allende.

74. "Peace requires everyone to be in the circle - wholeness, inclusion."

- Isabel Allende.

75. "Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows."

- Isabel Allende.

76. "When everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars"

- Isabel Allende.

77. "I can promise you that women working together ... can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet."

- Isabel Allende.

78. "Be careful what you ask of Heaven; it might be granted."

- Isabel Allende.

79. "For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world."

- Isabel Allende.

80. "If we don't begin by imagining the perfect society, how shall we create one?"

- Isabel Allende.

81. "Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives."

- Isabel Allende.

82. "The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing."

- Isabel Allende.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for the author, Isabel Allende quotes, then why not take a look at [Daenerys Targaryen quotes], or [Elena Gilbert quotes]?

Main Image Editorial credit: mark reinstein / Shutterstock.com

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Written by Georgia Stone

Bachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia Stone picture

Georgia StoneBachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia is an experienced Content Manager with a degree in French and Film Studies from King's College London and Bachelors degree from Université Paris-Sorbonne. Her passion for exploring the world and experiencing different cultures was sparked during her childhood in Switzerland and her year abroad in Paris. In her spare time, Georgia enjoys using London's excellent travel connections to explore further afield.

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