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'Drown' was always a hybrid book. It's connected stories - partially a story collection but partially a novel. I always wanted the reader to decide which genre they thought the book belonged to more - story, novel, neither, both.

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
Thought
Genre
Wanted
Decide
Book
Connected
Partially
Always
Neither
Hybrid
Reader
Belonged
Novel
Drown
Story
Collection
Stories
Collections

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God bless perseverance. Because it's not easy.
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The idea that America has cornered the market on anti-immigration is ridiculous. It's a global phenomenon.
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She had reason to doubt him he was real good at planning but real bad at doing.
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Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.
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Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either.
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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?
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Books don't live and die by awards. You don't listen to an Hector Lavoe album because it won some awards.
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Poor Oscar. Without even realizing it he'd fallen into one of those Let's Be Friends Vortexes, the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love's version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.
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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.
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Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.
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She's applying her lipstick I've always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.
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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.
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I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.
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People are always fascinated by infidelity because, in the end - whether we've had direct experience or not - there's part of you that knows there's absolutely no more piercing betrayal. People are undone by it.
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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.
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