I never hear white writers get asked, 'Do you worry about how you represent white people?' — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent,… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening. — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
Used to be in the old days, only the pulp writers wrote like machines. Now everybody is expected to be literary John… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have… — Junot Díaz Copy Share Image
As for my slowness as a writer - that's been a struggle, no question. We live in a culture that values and… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
When I write, what I long for is not more realism or fiction but more courage. That's what I always find myself… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
When I enter that higher-order space that's required to write, I'm a better human. For whatever my writing is, wherever it's ranked,… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
It wasn't that I couldn't write. I wrote every day. I actually worked really hard at writing. At my desk by 7… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
The thing is - do we really need another writer who writes a book every eighteen months, whether the quality is wonderful… — Junot Diaz Copy Share 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… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I think that most of my writer friends are really compulsive. I think that's great. It's wonderful for them. It's just not… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
But it's clear to me that us slow-poke writers are a dying breed. It's amazing how thoroughly my young writing students have… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I'm having so much trouble with writing. Maybe if I help other people, it'll be easier for me. — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
Stereotypes, they're sensual, cultural weapons. That's the way that we attack people. At an artistic level, stereotypes are terrible writing. — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I think that if you're writing about the human condition, my God, you've got to start at base: point zero, point one,… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I didn't start writing until late high school and then I was just diddling. Mainly I loved to read and my writing… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I'm still trying to figure out how to write about cancer and my family's experience with it. If I had been able… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I think there's something really painful about your identity being entirely composed of ghosts. For me, I didn't want to be this… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
“From what I saw the plurality of students and faculty had been educated exclusively in the tradition of writers like William Gaddis...” — Junot Díaz Copy Share Image
There are a couple of strategies for writing about an absence or writing about a loss. One can create the person that… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
I write for the people I grew up with. I took extreme pains for my book to not be a native informant.… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
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… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
You ask everybody you know: How long does it usually take to get over it? There are many formulas. One year for every year… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
Instead of finding himself in nerd heaven—where every nerd gets fifty-eight virgins to role-play with—he woke up in Robert Wood Johnson with two broken… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
The one thing about being a dude and writing from a female perspective is that the baseline is, you suck. The baseline is it… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
“I used to think those were the barrio rules, Latinos and blacks in, whites out —a place we down cats weren’t supposed to go.… — Junot Díaz Copy Share Image
I've always thought that you don't love a country by turning a blind eye to its crimes and to a problem. The way that… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
“Called her a whore and attacked her walls, tearing down her posters and throwing her books everywhere. I found out because some whitegirl ran… — Junot Díaz Copy Share Image
You're Dominican only if you do this, this, and that. And if you do this and that, you'll be accepted to a certain degree… — Junot Diaz Copy Share Image
“Ramfis fled the country after Trujillo's death, lived dissolutely off his father's swag, and ended up dying in a car crash of his own… — Junot Díaz Copy Share Image
