Junot Diaz Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“It wasn't that I couldn't write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7 A.M., would work a full eight and more. Scribbled at the dinner table, in bed, on the toilet, on the No. 6 train, at Shea Stadium. I did everything I could. But none of it worked.”

“I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.”

“There are a couple of strategies for writing about an absence or writing about a loss. One can create the person that was lost, develop the character of the fiancee. There's another strategy that one can employ, maybe riskier... Make the reader suffer the loss of the character in a more literal way.”

“I'm an immigrant and I will stay an immigrant forever.”

“'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening.”

“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.”

“My mother took care of us until my father scrammed, and then she ended up working in the small-factory sector of New Jersey with a lot of other immigrants.”

“Any art worth its name requires you to be fundamentally lost for a very long time.”

“New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino.”

“To an outsider, I just seem like a list of accomplishments. To me, all there is is how often I fail.”