Latest Junot Diaz Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• If you're a status quo writer, you're considered to not be political but that's as political as if you're a progressive writer. Some politics are asked to show their passports and others aren't. In the Dominican Republique, if you're slightly progressive, people have a lot of suspicions that you're up to some sort of conspiracy, that this is some sort of plot. On the other hand, if you're conservative and mainstream, people tend to take that as a given and don't notice the politics.

  Junot Diaz

  People, Political, Conservative

• I think that most of us are aware that as writers we are seeking absences, we're seeking silences, we're seeking spaces that people haven't entered. No writer is saying, "Hey, I want to go to this very well trod territory and say exactly what someone else has done." I think the nature of a writer, because we are attempting to bring to light areas that people haven't seen before, tends in some ways to be progressive, at least in that light.

  Junot Diaz

  Thinking, People, Silence

• I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books.

  Junot Diaz

  Dream, Teacher, Book

• The thing is - do we really need another writer who writes a book every eighteen months, whether the quality is wonderful or not? I mean, maybe. But I can name twenty off the top of my head who do it. Maybe what we need is a writer like me who goes very slow, as well.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Mean, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• 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 my bag. It's not the way I work. But again, it's probably why my friend has ten books out and I have two.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Thinking, Two

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I'm really into the rights of immigrants, the rights of the working poor. I'm one of those little activist types. I probably would have just gone to law school. And the scary part is that I was one of those kids who always tested really well. You put a test in front of me, and I would have been like do-do-do-do-do. I probably would have been some community lawyer somewhere - if anything, that's probably what I would have been doing.

  Junot Diaz

  School, Kids, Law

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I spent my entire childhood feeling like a freak because I liked to read. It's just like, "Eh, no one else likes to read but me; I must be crazy!"

  Junot Diaz

  Crazy, Childhood, Feelings

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• For me I was always a smart nerdy kid. I wasn't the smartest and I wasn't the nerdiest, but I was a smart nerdy kid my whole childhood, and I definitely wanted to be somehow involved with reading the rest of my life, and I came from a community, I lived in a community, I was part of a community where reading was considered completely alien.

  Junot Diaz

  Smart, Reading, Kids

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.

  Junot Diaz

  Powerful, Book, Wonderful

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I think that if you're writing about the human condition, my God, you've got to start at base: point zero, point one, is the body.

  Junot Diaz

  Zero, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The body is what reminds us on a daily basis that we're human. The body defies us, it betrays us, we have to struggle with it, you know. And it reveals in curious and in abiding ways how we are not perfect.

  Junot Diaz

  Struggle, Perfect, Way

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Every time you hear anyone talk about the Caribbean, whether it's Caribbeans themselves or people outside, there's always talk about women's bodies. Talk about this voluptuousness, this kind of stereotype of what a Caribbean person is. And I think these are stereotypes that even people inside the culture, we actually sometimes claim them and we're very proud.

  Junot Diaz

  Thinking, People, Culture

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Mexico City is the center of art and culture and politics and has been and continues to be for Latin America in a way that I think really called to me as an artistic person, as someone that was interested in the politics of Latin America, you know. God, every single famous person in Latin American history and art and politics seems to have found their way to Mexico City.

  Junot Diaz

  Art, Latin, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I think that distance is good for some people for certain projects. I mean this is sort of a dynamic question. Some projects require more distance than others, some don't require it at all. Sometimes you need it and sometimes you don't.

  Junot Diaz

  Distance, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly possible.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Writing, Trying

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• My art feels like it's real disobedient. I can fill notebooks with observations and maybe they find their way into the work unconsciously, which is great. I've never been able to directly plug, like to take a little snip that I've picked up on the street and transfer it into a story. I don't know what's wrong, but it never works that way.

  Junot Diaz

  Notebook, Art, Real

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The art is just really mysterious. If I understood it more, maybe I would write more.

  Junot Diaz

  Art, Writing, Mysterious

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I love the kookiness of our speech. Speech is like wonderful magic and poetry in itself. I've always had to crib a lot from what I've heard.

  Junot Diaz

  Magic, Speech, Wonderful

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• An ear will never do you wrong, but I know writers who... most of the language they use is just extracted language from other languages they've read. I am a big-time reader, but I mix and match.

  Junot Diaz

  Use, Ears, Language

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I always think about myself as a writer; that comes out of being a reader first, and I don't think I kind of got to really playing with language in any formal way probably until I was in my mid-twenties.

  Junot Diaz

  Thinking, Twenties, Way

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.

  Junot Diaz

  Reading, Comfort, Delight

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• [Immigrating] didn't burn out my desire to travel, though that can happen. There's nothing like immigration to make you want to just stay put. But what I think of as home is this life between Santo Domingo and the parts of New Jersey and New York City that were my childhood, so in my mind it's like home is all those things combined.

  Junot Diaz

  New York, Home, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• [The biggest disappointment is] that he [Barack Obama] deported everybody and their grandmother.

  Junot Diaz

  Disappointment, Grandmother, Barack

• We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.

  Junot Diaz

  Advice, Lasts, Last Time

  "Junot Díaz is staying put". Interview with Marcela García, www.bostonglobe.com. April 6, 2016.

• I'm part of the people who are more neutral. I'm just waiting for the dust to settle so that we can turn our guns against the Republicans.

  Junot Diaz

  Gun, Dust, People

  "Junot Díaz is staying put". Interview with Marcela García, www.bostonglobe.com. April 6, 2016.