Privilege does not operate without silence. Junot Diaz More Quotes by Junot Diaz More Quotes From Junot Diaz Students teach all sorts of things but most importantly they make explicit the courage that it takes to be a learner, the courage it takes to open yourself to the transformative power of real learning and that courage I am exposed to almost every day at MIT and that I'm deeply grateful for. Junot Diaz mitgratefulreal I think the average guy thinks they're pro-woman, just because they think they're a nice guy and someone has told them that they're awesome. But the truth is far from it. Junot Diaz niceaveragethinking I've always thought that you don't love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that you love a country is by seeing everything that it's done wrong, all of its mistakes, and still thinking that it's beautiful and that it's worthy. Junot Diaz mistakebeautifulcountry I never hear white writers get asked, 'Do you worry about how you represent white people?' Junot Diaz whiteworrypeople As expected: she, the daughter of the Fall, recipient of its heaviest radiation, loved atomically. Junot Diaz radiationdaughterfall Do you remember? When the fights seemed to go on and on, and always ended with us in bed, tearing at each other like maybe that could change everything. In a couple of months you'd be seeing somebody else and I would too; she was no darker than you but she washed her panties in the shower and had hair like a sea of little punos and the first time you saw us, you turned around and boarded a bus I knew you didn't have to take. When my girl said, Who was that? I said, Just some girl. Junot Diaz girlcouplefighting I'm like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good. Junot Diaz weakmistake I have a very powerful sense of place, but I have a very powerful sense of being a migrant, so it's both. It seems like I'm always leaving my home. That's part of the formula. I love the Dominican Republic. I go back all the time. I love New Jersey. Go back all the time. Junot Diaz leavingpowerfulhome She's applying her lipstick; I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas. Junot Diaz latinaredcolor In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace--and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get. Junot Diaz cheaterheartlying This is what I know: people's hopes go on forever. Junot Diaz goes-onforeverpeople The half-life of love is forever. Junot Diaz halfforeverlove Every single immigrant we have, undocumented or documented, is a future American. That's just the truth of it. Junot Diaz immigrants I think that most of us are aware that as writers we are seeking absences, we're seeking silences, we're seeking spaces that people haven't entered. No writer is saying, "Hey, I want to go to this very well trod territory and say exactly what someone else has done." I think the nature of a writer, because we are attempting to bring to light areas that people haven't seen before, tends in some ways to be progressive, at least in that light. Junot Diaz silencepeoplethinking It's never the changes we want that change everything. Junot Diaz want You were at the age where you could fall in love with a girl over an expression, over a gesture. That's what happened with your girlfriend, Paloma- she stooped to pick up her purse and your heart flew out of you. Junot Diaz falling-in-lovegirlheart I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books. Junot Diaz dreamteacherbook What else she doesn't know: that the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again. Junot Diaz husbandfatherchildren I look most like myself... when I'm wearing my black, nerdy engineering glasses. Junot Diaz engineeringblackglasses Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in. Junot Diaz tourismhurtfulartist
