To read is to cover one's face. And to write is to show it. — Alejandro Zambra Bonsai Copy Share Image
Everything has been said and everything has been done, but you still feel like you are looking for something. — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“But no. Memory is no refuge. There remains only an inconsistent babble of street names that no longer exist.” — Alejandro Zambra Memory Copy Share Image
You are told that you have to eliminate un-useful sentences, but as a writer you know how important details are. — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“I always thought I didn't have real childhood memories. That my history fit into a few lines. One one page, maybe. In… — Alejandro Zambra Childhood Copy Share Image
For me, writing is a way of finding out about things I didn't know before I began writing. — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“What greater happiness than to know that move exists, that I can watch it many times, that I can watch it always.” — Alejandro Zambra Film Copy Share Image
I don't have any doubts that I need writing. I need it personally because this is the way I think. — Alejandro Zambra Doubt Copy Share Image
You're looking for something, I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'm looking. Writing is a lot about that. When you… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
“What's the purpose of being with someone if they don't change your life? She said that, and Julio was present when she… — Alejandro Zambra Change your life Copy Share Image
“She lay on the bed to read a novel; she wanted to forget that bitter conversation and be carried along by the… — Alejandro Zambra Book Copy Share Image
Literature is about getting in touch. It sounds so hippie, but it really is about sharing stuff. We are a community that… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
The ways in which a standardized language test induces storytelling, for example, is the opposite of creative writing; you have to learn… — Alejandro Zambra Creative Copy Share Image
“Back then death was invisible for children like me, who went outside, running fearlessly along those fantastical streets, safe from history. The… — Alejandro Zambra Children Copy Share Image
I was a nerdy kid and I was writing and showing other fellows who are still my friends what I was writing.… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
I remember thinking, without pride of self-pity, that I was not rich or poor, that I wasn't good or bad. But that… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
Publishing my book is like giving it away. At first you start talking about it, but you are basically letting go. I… — Alejandro Zambra Birth Copy Share Image
“She knows that very soon Ernesto won't come back. She imagines herself disconcerted, then furious, and finally invaded by a decisive calm.… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“It would be better to close the book, close the books, and to face, all at once, not life, which is very… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
“...she feels a desire to go to the bridge, alone, to throw something over the rail, into the current—a photograph, a hat,… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“The novel belongs to our parents, I thought then, I think now. That's what we grew up believing, that the novel belonged… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
“Parents abandon their children. Children abandon their parents. Parents protect or forsake, but they always forsake. Children stay or go but they… — Alejandro Zambra Child Copy Share Image
“Julián didn’t want to regain his love, since he had stopped loving her a long time ago. He had stopped loving her… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“She asked me later, half-joking, if the characters stay together for the rest of their lives. I couldn't avoid a flicker of… — Alejandro Zambra Stay together Copy Share Image
“There are some families in which, at 9:00 at night, the father starts to hit the wine and the mother the ironing,… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“Julian curses his fixation: Ultimately, he should have his time writing down the conversations that floated up from the bar beneath the… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
As a child, all you see is that adults are not playing. Adults are not talking too much. Adults don't want to… — Alejandro Zambra Adults Copy Share Image
I am still trying to find out things. And I inevitably tell myself the story in different ways every time I think… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
When you read a novel, you know what to expect because you've been reading novels for a long time. — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
We rely too much on the people we share our lives with. We hold them responsible for things they are not even… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
You can say that literature is about topics like love, death, and all that, but I think there is only one topic… — Alejandro Zambra Belonging Copy Share Image
“Because we can't, we don't know how to talk about a movie or a book anymore; the moment has come when movies… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
Every story, every poem, every written piece is about belonging. There is a me, there is a we, there is an us,… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“The truth is she can’t stand fiction; she gets impatient with novelists’ absurd farces; let’s pretend there was once a world that… — Alejandro Zambra Fiction Copy Share Image
I think about Chilean literature as a family, because I grew up reading the literature of my country. I feel like I… — Alejandro Zambra Books Copy Share Image
The stories on standardized tests don't have one author, therefore they can never authentically be in the first person. Imagine that! Everywhere,… — Alejandro Zambra Education Copy Share Image
If you write, and you are really alone (writing is a lonely thing), you learn to be alone without suffering. When you… — Alejandro Zambra Copy Share Image
“I must say that my father is innocent. I should say it. I have to say it. I’m obliged to say it.… — Alejandro Zambra Children Copy Share Image
