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I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.

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
Write
Writing
Always
Would
Writers
Couldn
Dies
Read

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The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.
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My mother took care of us until my father scrammed, and then she ended up working in the small-factory sector of New Jersey with a lot of other immigrants.
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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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As an artist you're on a journey of discovery and sometimes that journey takes a long time, doesn't subscribe to [a] train schedule, to the punch-clock. And I need to read a lot to make my pages happen.
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I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.
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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.
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Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
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Once someone gets a little escape velocity going, ain't no play in the world that will keep them from leaving.
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Spin is 'something is beautiful because we say it's beautiful.'
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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.
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A person doesn't mourn forever.
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We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.
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I look most like myself... when I'm wearing my black, nerdy engineering glasses.
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It took me sixteen years to write.
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Nilda is watching the ground as though she's afraid she might fall. My heart is beating and I think, We could do anything. We could marry. We could drive off to the West Coast. We could start over. It's all possible but neither of us speaks for a long time and the moment closes and we're back in the world we've always known.
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New Jersey is to New York what Santo Domingo is to the United States. I always felt that those two landscapes, not only just the landscapes themselves but their relationships to what we would call 'a center' or 'the center of the universe,' has in some ways defined my artistic and critical vision.
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I can always tell if someone's from Harvard because they trot out their vitae. I would die at Harvard.
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She would be a new person, she vowed. They said no matter how far a mule travels it can never come back a horse, but she would show them all.
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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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I guess it's true what they say: if you wait long enough everything changes.
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