Julia Alvarez, on books:

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

– Julia Alvarez.

Julia Alvarez, on books:

A book does not discriminate against any reader.

All are welcome at the table of literature.

– Julia Alvarez.

Julia Alvarez, on writing:

It's like my whole world is coming undone, 

but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, 

and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

– Julia Alvarez.

Julia Alvarez, on writing and reading:

The elasticity of imagination and compassion is what writing and reading promote.

– Julia Alvarez.

Julia Alvarez, on writing:

For me, the writing life doesn't just happen when I sit at the writing desk.

It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this:

that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in.

'My heart keeps open house,' was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem.

And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house

is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world.

– Julia Alvarez.

Julia Alvarez, on writing:

But the sensibility of the writer, whether fiction or poetry, comes from paying attention.

I tell my students that writing doesn't begin when you sit down to write.

It's a way of being in the world, and the essence of it is paying attention.

– Julia Alvarez.