Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Junot Diaz
Age: 55
Born: 1968
Born: December 31
Faculty Member
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic
Junot Diaz
Book
Fine
Page
Nothing
Started
Damn
First
Pretty
Wrote
Made
Hope
Cool
Kind
Sense
Pages
Budge
Would
Stories
Mark
Shortly
Past
Wouldn
Publishing
Firsts
Novel
Hadn

More quotes by Junot Diaz

Image
In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
Junot Diaz
Image
The idea that America has cornered the market on anti-immigration is ridiculous. It's a global phenomenon.
Junot Diaz
Image
A person doesn't mourn forever.
Junot Diaz
Image
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
Image
I think men spend so much time passing for being men.
Junot Diaz
Image
I act most like myself... when I'm in my hometown, Santo Domingo. I try to get there about five times a year.
Junot Diaz
Image
My thing is every generation of Americans has to answer what we call the 'Superman Question.' Superman comes, lands in America. He's illegal. He's one of these kids. He's wrapped up in a red bullfighter's cape. And you've got to decide what we're gonna do with Superman.
Junot Diaz
Image
The half-life of love is forever.
Junot Diaz
Image
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
Image
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.
Junot Diaz
Image
I was neither black enough for the black kids or Dominican enough for the Dominican kids. I didn't have a safe category.
Junot Diaz
Image
She had reason to doubt him he was real good at planning but real bad at doing.
Junot Diaz
Image
I write incredibly slowly. And, on top of that, I spent my entire youth and twenties working like a dog, so one of the things that happened when I finished Drown was that I got busy living. I'd never travelled, I'd never seen anything. So I did as much travelling as my job teaching would allow.
Junot Diaz
Image
People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong.
Junot Diaz
Image
Genre might certainly increase some of your narrative freedoms, but it also diminishes others. That's the nature of genre.
Junot Diaz
Image
Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.
Junot Diaz
Image
'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening.
Junot Diaz
Image
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
Image
It's exactly at these moments, when all hope has vanished, that prayer has dominion.
Junot Diaz
Image
I spent my entire childhood feeling like a freak because I liked to read. It's just like, Eh, no one else likes to read but me I must be crazy!
Junot Diaz