398 Quotes by Junot Díaz

When I got heartbroken at 20, it just felt like someone had spiraled a football right into my skull. At 40, it feels like someone had driven a 757 right through me.

When I write, what I long for is not more realism or fiction but more courage. That’s what I always find myself short on and what I have to struggle to achieve in order that the work might live.

The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art.

I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work.

I wring my hands because I know that as a dude, my privilege, my long-term deficiencies work against me in writing women, no matter how hard I try and how talented I am.

When I became my masked identity I was this incredible little nerd, but in the real world I had to be this tough kid from the neighborhood.

You don’t want to let go, but don’t want to be hurt, either. It’s not a great place to be but what can I tell you?

Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can’t exist without one.

I guess I’m just hopelessly fascinated by the realities that you can assemble out of connected fragments.