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If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level any reflection of themselves
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
Make
Monsters
Cultural
Reflection
Deny
Level
Levels
Human
Humans
Monster
More quotes by Junot Diaz
In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.
Junot Diaz
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
For my first three books the setting (or place if you will) has always been a given - N.J. and the Dominican Republic and some N.Y.C. - so from one perspective you could say that the place in my work always comes first.
Junot Diaz
Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.
Junot Diaz
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
It might interest you that just as the U.S. was ramping up its involvement in Vietnam, LBJ launched an illegal invasion of the Dominican Republic (April 28, 1965). (Santo Domingo was Iraq before Iraq was Iraq.)
Junot Diaz
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
Genre might certainly increase some of your narrative freedoms, but it also diminishes others. That's the nature of genre.
Junot Diaz
but back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.
Junot Diaz
You eventually erase her contact info from your phone but not the pictures you took of her in bed while she was naked and asleep, never those.
Junot Diaz
I think men spend so much time passing for being men.
Junot Diaz
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
I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work.
Junot Diaz
John Carter was also one of our first recognizable superhumans and there is little doubt that his extraordinary physical feats inspired Superman's creators. Remember: before Superman could fly or turn back time, he was nothing less than an earthbound crime-fighting John Carter in tights.
Junot Diaz
I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.
Junot Diaz
Love is understood, in a historical way, as one of the great human vocations - but its counterspell has always been infidelity. This terrible, terrible betrayal that can tear apart not only another person, not only oneself, but whole families.
Junot Diaz
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
You can't regret the life you didn't lead.
Junot Diaz
Shot at twenty-seven times - what a Dominican number.
Junot Diaz
I sleep way too much and I read tremendously.
Junot Diaz
