“The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.” 

“Write what should not be forgotten.” 

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.” 

“We only have what we give.” 

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

“You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found.” 

“A man does what he can; a woman does what a man cannot.” 

“Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.” 

“you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction” 

“This is to assuage our conscience, darling" she would explain to Blanca. "But it doesn't help the poor. They don't need charity; they need justice.” 

“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” 

“He had only to touch me to turn my tears into sighs and my anger to desire. How accomodating love is; it forgives everything.” 

“Erotica is using a feather; pornograpy is using the whole chicken.” 

“The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear . . .” 

“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.” 

“Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.” 

“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...” 

“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.” 

“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.” 

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.” 

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

“...when everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars” 

“Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy. ” 

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.” 

“I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but also in the elusive forms of reality.” 

“Writing is a constant exercise in longing.” 

“He realized...that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious. ” 

“Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story. I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses the luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone of telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia.” 

“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change” 

“My name is Eva, which means 'life,' according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of those things made me melancholy, because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory.” 

“I need to remember to overcome.” 

-No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.” 

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

“Be careful what you ask of Heaven; it might be granted.” 

“The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing.” 

“Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape....For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place.” 

“I was a romantic and sentimental creature, with a tendency towards solitude.” 

“our demons lose their power when we pull them out of the depths where they hide and look them in the face in broad daylight.” 

“The names of persons and living creatures demand respect, because when we speak to them we touch their heart and become a part of thier life force.” 

“Happiness is pure kitsch; we come into the world to suffer and learn.” 

“That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.” 

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

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

“There are a lot of good people, Irina, but they keep quiet about it. It’s the bad ones who make a lot of noise, and that’s why they get noticed.” 

“His calls for justice were lost at the mercy of the wind and human indifference.” 

“She regretted nothing she had shared with her lover, nor was she ashamed of the fires that had changed her life; just the opposite, she felt that they had tempered her, made her strong, given her pride in making decisions and paying the consequences for them.” 

“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.” 

“Land is something one should never sell. It is the only thing left when all else is gone.” 

“There is room in the human heart for all the divinities.” 

“Before you conquer the mountain, you must learn to overcome your fear.”