In times of conflict, war, poverty or religious fundamentalism, women and children are the first and most numerous victims. Women need all their courage today. Isabel Allende More Quotes by Isabel Allende More Quotes From Isabel Allende When I fall in love I'm obsessed. Isabel Allende obsessed falling-in-love fall I'm not a fan of mysteries, so to prepare for this experience of writing a mystery I started reading the most successful ones in the market in 2012. And I realized I cannot write that kind of book. It's too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there's no redemption there. Isabel Allende reading writing book Only in romance novels or in thrillers people live outside of a social and political context. Isabel Allende romance political people In 2011, I announced that I was going to retire, and my agent panicked. So she says: No, no, no. You have to write a book with your husband. Isabel Allende husband writing book I'm an expert. I can kill anybody and not be caught. Isabel Allende caught i-can experts At my age, people prefer to stay in a relationship that is not working. I do not understand that. I think it takes a lot of courage to separate. But it takes more energy to stay in something that is not working. Isabel Allende age people thinking I'm surrounded by the scene of aging. I myself am in my 70s and not getting any younger. Although I'm very healthy, and I have a lot of energy, and I still feel 50, I'm over 70 and I understand that I am preparing for later. Isabel Allende aging healthy energy I'm surrounded by young people. I'm always now the oldest and the shortest person in the room. Isabel Allende young people rooms I carry around a little stool to stand on when people want a picture with their cellular phones. Isabel Allende phones want people I met a guy, very exotic to me - he was blonde with blue eyes - and I just had a fling that turned out to be love. I moved to San Francisco to spend a week with him and get him out of my system; I'm still here 26 years later. Isabel Allende eye blue years We have all the technology to record things in the streets. Now the historians cannot twist it or change it, because we have cellular phones or video cameras, and we are filming in the streets what's going on. We have the voices of everybody recorded. There's too much recording and I think that's wonderful. Isabel Allende phones technology thinking I love my dog unconditionally, but never the man I'm sleeping with. Isabel Allende dog sleep men I'm always following the characters and I'm always interested in what happens to them, but what happens to them is conditioned by the circumstances in which they live. Isabel Allende following circumstances character Before I start writing, before I have an idea of where and when the story happens, I research it thoroughly. Isabel Allende stories writing ideas More and more books are published every year. If people were not reading them, they wouldn't be published. We are in a different moment. We are now reading electronic books or whatever else, but people are still reading, and people still need stories. Isabel Allende reading book years I don't want to be looking inside my ego, my stuff, my achievements, my me, me, me, me, I hate that stuff. I just want to be out there eh to the last day of my life ah interested in the world, in causes, in helping other people. Um that doesn't mean that I don't have a spiritual practice, that I don't look at my own soul, that I don't prepare myself for the that transition that death is but I cannot sit in meditation to contemplate my navel for the rest of my life. That would be boring for me. Isabel Allende hate spiritual mean I was born in the middle of World War II, the middle of the Holocaust; I was born when there was no declaration of human rights, when feminism was not an issue, when children were working in factories. I mean, today's world is a better place! Isabel Allende war mean children I would like to be with my husband together sitting somewhere in a lonely place in the woods and take something, maybe some pills or something, a magic potion and die together. Isabel Allende magic husband lonely It's good for a writer to come from journalism because it gives you the tools. A journalist knows that he or she can lose the reader in six lines, so try to keep the attention of the reader. Also, you learn to research, and to conduct an interview - to extract from the person whatever you need from that person. Isabel Allende research trying giving Life is very mysterious and there are many things we don't know. And there are elements of magic realism in every culture, everywhere. It's just accepting that we don't know everything and everything is possible. Isabel Allende magic-realism elements culture