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In fact, looking at the darkest sides of the United States has only made me appreciate the things that we do right, the things that we do beautifully. We are, for all of our mistakes and all of our crimes, a remarkable place.

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
Things
Looking
Beautifully
Fact
Crimes
United
Remarkable
Facts
Mistakes
Place
Appreciate
States
Crime
Right
Mistake
Made
Sides
Darkest

More quotes by Junot Diaz

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I grew up in the shadow of the Trujillato, saw how the regime had ravaged so many families.
Junot Diaz
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We hide so well. This is the bottom line: how hidden is male subjectivity? Name five books where male subjectivity is produced in an honest way.
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When she smiles niggers ask her for her hand in marriage when I smile folks check their wallets.
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The anti-immigrant logic has basically saturated our world. I'm staying, and I'm fighting.
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When I read Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros as a freshman at Rutgers, it all clicked - that writing was all I wanted to do. It became my calling.
Junot Diaz
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What a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are).
Junot Diaz
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A young person, or someone who's writing in a different way - in some ways you could say, eventually someone will find them. Eventually someone will hear them. But it's good a lot of young people persevere. Because sometimes you have to send something out a thousand times before anyone recognizes your value.
Junot Diaz
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You need to learn how to walk the world, he told me. There's a lot out there.
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I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.
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For a long time, I let my mother say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.
Junot Diaz
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And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.
Junot Diaz
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'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening.
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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Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.
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I just want some space to myself every now and then. Every time I’m with you I have this sense that you want something from me.
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As a Dominican man, you're socialized to be a playboy. You spend a lot of time being taught that women are important, but without the really positive framework of why. You figure out quickly it's because of culo (ass). But there is a sense that it's not that simple.
Junot Diaz
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It was like being at the bottom of an ocean, she said. There was no light and a whole ocean crushing down on you. But most people had gotten so used to it they thought it normal, they forgot even that there was a world above.
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I think a lot of the most interesting immigrant writing involves stepping outside of that old, dreary binary. Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker is a great example. Same goes for Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior.
Junot Diaz
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I sleep way too much and I read tremendously.
Junot Diaz
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When you're the ones in the life raft and you have four or five women in the life raft who put it together, by the end of it your nerves are blown. The people you're going to attack are the people who are helping you, who you are holding it together with.
Junot Diaz