Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Junot Diaz
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: December 31
Faculty Member
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic
Junot Diaz
Mother
Wanted
Long
Time
Believed
Worse

More quotes by Junot Diaz

Image
I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.
Junot Diaz
Image
You can't find intimacy - you can't find home - when you're always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.
Junot Diaz
Image
The half-life of love is forever.
Junot Diaz
Image
We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.
Junot Diaz
Image
Privilege does not operate without silence.
Junot Diaz
Image
As expected: she, the daughter of the Fall, recipient of its heaviest radiation, loved atomically.
Junot Diaz
Image
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.
Junot Diaz
Image
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
Image
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.
Junot Diaz
Image
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
Image
The truth is there ain’t no relationship in the world that doesn’t hit turbulence.
Junot Diaz
Image
The anti-immigrant logic has basically saturated our world. I'm staying, and I'm fighting.
Junot Diaz
Image
Colleagues are a wonderful thing - but mentors, that's where the real work gets done.
Junot Diaz
Image
Even if you didn't come from another country, the idea of how do you make a home somewhere new is common to anyone who's either going to college, shifting towns.
Junot Diaz
Image
I'm like everybody else: weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.
Junot Diaz
Image
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.
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
I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.
Junot Diaz
Image
The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.
Junot Diaz
Image
I look most like myself... when I'm wearing my black, nerdy engineering glasses.
Junot Diaz