“Happy endings usually don't work for me. I like open endings. I trust the reader's imagination.”

— Isabel Allende, Interviews collected on the author's website

About Isabel Allende

Born 1942

Chilean-American novelist, author of "The House of the Spirits".

“Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it's silent, tranquil, and gentle.”

“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.”

“Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.”

“Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness?”

“Public Disputes warm the Imagination, whet the Industry, and strengthen the natural Abilities.”

“We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people.”

“The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”

“The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”