Eva Luna Quotes

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“...when everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“My name is Eva, which means 'life,' according to a book of names my mother consulted. I was born in the back room of a shadowy house, and grew up amidst ancient furniture, books in Latin, and human mummies, but none of those things made me melancholy, because I came into the world with a breath of the jungle in my memory.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“I felt an unrelenting restlessness. It was the first time I had ever experienced jealousy, and that emotion clung to my skin day and night like a dark stain, a contamination I could not shed; it became so unbearable that when finally I rid myself of it, I was freed forever of the desire to possess another person or the temptation ever to belong to anyone.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“January 8 has been a lucky day for me. I have started all my books on that day, and all of them have been well received by the readers. I write eight to ten hours a day until I have a first draft, then I can relax a little. I am very disciplined. I write in silence and solitude. I light a candle to call inspiration and the muses, and I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, dead and alive.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“At times I felt that the universe fabricated from the power of imagination had stronger and more lasting contours than the blurred realm of the flesh-and-blood creatures around me.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Sadness and boredom were more bearable than the effort of living a normal life. Perhaps the idea of death began to hover over her during that period, as a kind of higher order of lassitude in which she would not have to move the blood in her veins or the air in her lungs; her repose would be absolute- not to think, not to feel, not to be.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Words are free, she used to say, and she appropriated them; they were all hers. She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Entonces dejé de examinarme en el espejo para compararme con las mujeres perfectas del cine y las revistas y decidí que era bella por la simple razón de que tenía ganas de serlo.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“The house was a vast labyrinth of books. Volumes were stacked from floor to ceiling on every wall, dark, crackling, redolent of leather bindings, smooth to the touch, with their gold titles and translucent gilt-edged pages and delicate typography.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Although stunned and hungry, many sang, because it would have been pointless to aggravate misfortune by complaining.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“On that long journey she wept all the tears stored in her soul, leaving none in reserve for later sorrows.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Words are free, she tried to say, and she appropriated them; they were all hers.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“I thought of the long-ago afternoon when we first met, a boy and a girl in a crowded plaza. Even then he was an ingrained macho, able to direct his destiny; in contrast, he believed that because I had been born a girl I was at a disadvantage, I should accept my limitations and entrust myself to others’ care. In his eyes, I would never be independent. Huberto had thought that way since he could think at all; it was not likely that the Revolution was going to change those attitudes. I realized that our problems were not related in any way to the fortunes of the guerillas; even if he achieved his dream, there would be no equality for me. For Naranjo, and others like him, “the people” seemed to be composed exclusively of men; we women should contribute to the struggle but were excluded from decision-making and power. His revolution would not change my fate in any fundamental way; under any circumstances, as long as I lived I would still have to make my own way. Perhaps it was at that moment I realized that mine is a war with no end in view; I might as well fight it cheerfully or I would spend my life waiting for some distant victory in order to be happy.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Melesio tweezed his facial hairs, then ran ether-soaked cotton over his face, so his skin was the texture of silk; he took pains with his long-fingered, slender hands, and every night brushed his hair one hundred times. He was tall, with strong bones, but he moved with such delicacy that he gave the impression of being fragile. He never talked about his family and it would be years later, during his time in the penal colony on Santa María, that La Señora learned anything about his past. His father had been a bear of a man who had emigrated from Sicily and who every time he found his son playing with his sister’s toys gave him a beating accompanied by cries of Ricchione! Pederasta! Mascalzone!”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Πρέπει ν' αντιστέκεσαι όταν σε πολεμάνε. Τα λυσσασμένα σκυλιά κανένας δεν τολμάει να τα πειράξει, ενώ τα ήμερα τα κλωτσάνε. Πρέπει πάντα ν' αγωνίζεσαι.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Cuando escribo cuento la vida como me gustaría que fuera, como una novela.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“He had a presentiment that their fates would be intertwined, but immediately rejected it; he always tried to avoid falling into the traps of intuition.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“scorched by the sun, poorly nourished on yucca and fish, infested with parasites, bitten by mosquitoes, free as a bird”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“As palavras são de graça, dizia, e se apropriava delas, todas eram suas. Semeou na minha cabeça a ideia de que a realidade não é apenas o que se vê à superfície, tem também uma dimensão mágica e se alguém o deseja veementemente é legitimo que a exagere e lhe dê uma cor para que a passagem por esta vida não seja tão aborrecida.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Ouça Eva, os homens como Naranjo não podem fazer mudanças definitivas, apenas modificam as regras, porém permanecem sempre na mesma escala: Autoridade, competência, cobiça repressão. É sempre a mesma coisa...”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“He never spoke of his past, for fear of evoking sympathy and also because he had not yet come to grips with it in his mind. He prided himself on his coldness and pragmatism, but in truth he was an incorrigible dreamer.

His childhood of privation and terror had given him the ability to sense intuitively the dark side of situations and people, with a clairvoyance that flared before him like a powder flash, but his pretense of rationalism kept him from giving credence to those mysterious warnings or following his impulses.

He denied his emotions, but at any unguarded moment was demolished by them. He also refused to respond to the demands of his senses, and tried to control the part of his nature inclined toward voluptuousness and pleasure. He understood that La Colonia was a naive dreamworld he had stumbled into by accident, and believed that life was filled with harshness that would require strong armor if he was to survive. Nonetheless, those who knew him could see that his shell underneath was nothing but smoke and that it would dissipate in the slightest breeze.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“She had no obligations; she roamed outdoors, sniffing the flora and chasing the fauna, her mind filled with images, smells, colors, and myths borne on the river current.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Nada es para siempre, hija, sólo la muerte.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“Mientras los dueños del poder robaban sin escrúpulos, los ladrones de profesión o de necesidad apenas se atrevían a ejercer su oficio, porque el ojo de la policía estaba en todas partes.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“acabé de hacerme mujer y aprendí a conducir el timón de mi existencia, no siempre en la forma más elegante, es cierto, pero hay que tener en cuenta que me ha tocado navegar en aguas revueltas.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“A sus ojos yo siempre sería una criatura dependiente. Huberto pensaba así desde que tuvo uso de razón, era improbable que la revolución cambiara esos sentimientos. Comprendí que nuestros problemas no tenían relación con las vicisitudes de la guerrilla; aunque él lograra sacar adelante su sueño, la igualdad no alcanzaría para mí. Para Naranjo y otros como él, el pueblo parecía compuesto sólo de hombres; nosotras debíamos contribuir a la lucha, pero estábamos excluidas de las decisiones y del poder. Su revolución no cambiaría en esencia mi suerte, en cualquier circunstancia yo tendría que seguir abriéndome paso por mí misma hasta el último de mis días. Tal vez en ese momento me di cuenta de que la mía es una guerra cuyo final no se vislumbra.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

“En esas horas quise tomar el destino en mis manos y desde entonces muchas cosas me habían sucedido, tenía la impresión de haber vivido varias vidas, de haberme vuelto humo cada noche y haber renacido por las mañanas.”
― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna