398 Quotes by Junot Díaz

If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level any reflection of themselves.

I seem to enjoy telling stories with a central absence, with a lacuna tunnelled into them.

I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.

She’s applying her lipstick; I’ve always believed that the universe invented the color red solely for Latinas.

I couldn’t help it. I tried to keep it down but it just flooded through all my quiet spaces. It was a message more than a feeling, a message that tolled like a bell: change, change, change.

She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.

We all have a blind spot and it’s shaped exactly like us.

If you didn’t grow up like I did then you don’t know, and if you don’t know it’s probably better you don’t judge.

Personally I always feel like I could use a little more of poetry apothegmatic power in my own work but we’re always lacking something.