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I didn't start writing until late high school and then I was just diddling. Mainly I loved to read and my writing was an outgrowth of that.

Junot Diaz

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Junot Diaz
Age: 55
Born: 1968
Born: December 31
Faculty Member
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic
Junot Diaz
Start
Read
Didn
Outgrowth
School
Mainly
Writing
Late
Loved
High

More quotes by Junot Diaz

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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
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I guess it's true what they say: if you wait long enough everything changes.
Junot Diaz
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We know story collections end when they end, as well - the pages serving as a countdown - but nevertheless the standard story anthology hews closer to what makes being human so hard: it reminds you with each story how quickly everything we are, everything we call our lives can change, can be upended, can disappear. Never to return.
Junot Diaz
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I always had a sense that I would fall in love with Tokyo. In retrospect I guess it's not that surprising. I was of the generation that had grown up in the '80s when Japan was ascendant (born aloft by a bubble whose burst crippled its economy for decades), and I'd fed on a steady diet of anime and samurai films.
Junot Diaz
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The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.
Junot Diaz
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Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.
Junot Diaz
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Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her.
Junot Diaz
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You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of color in a contemporary U.S. ghetto. Mamma mia! Like having bat wings or a pair of tentacles growing out of your chest.
Junot Diaz
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My novel, which I had started with such hope shortly after publishing my first book of stories, wouldn't budge past the 75-page mark. Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing. Which would have been fine if the first 75 pages hadn't been pretty damn cool.
Junot Diaz
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Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.
Junot Diaz
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I'm not writing fairy tales or object lessons.
Junot Diaz
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We get so many people saying short fiction is not economical, that it doesn't sell but there are so many of us enjoying writing it and reading it. So it's wonderful to be around people who love short fiction too - it's like hanging around with my tribe.
Junot Diaz
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The truth is there ain’t no relationship in the world that doesn’t hit turbulence.
Junot Diaz
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The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.
Junot Diaz
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I never wanted to be away from the family. Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent.
Junot Diaz
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Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.
Junot Diaz
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New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino.
Junot Diaz
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It took me sixteen years to write.
Junot Diaz
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You don't want to let go, but don't want to be hurt, either. It's not a great place to be but what can I tell you?
Junot Diaz
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Out of nowhere you said, I love you. For whatever it's worth.
Junot Diaz