Diaz Quotes & Sayings

Intimacy starts with a relationship with yourself, an understanding of who you are. — Cameron Diaz

But most of all books (I say again and again) are like the Thirty-Mile Woman from Toni Morrison's Beloved: 'She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.' ~ Junot Diaz, author of the Pulitzer Prize novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. — Leah Price

The Prisoner's Wife echoes Edwidge Danticat's Farming of the Bones in the urgency in which it reminds us of the possibility of love even amidst the ruins. This is a terrifying, heart-breaking and, ultimately, important book. — Junot Diaz

I do my best to write my way through it. It helps the laughing, reflective part come quicker. — Madi Diaz

Experience tells me habits are stronger than love, fear, and necessity. — Alejandra Diaz Mattoni

TM is helping you tap into something that's already inside of you - that's you in essence. — Cameron Diaz

In minority communities there's a sensitivity, often a knee-jerk reaction, to critical representations. There's a misunderstanding of what an artist does. — Junot Diaz

I loved high school. I had the best high school experience of all time. I know that's not a common feeling, but it's the best. You're like, you know, 14 and expressing yourself on a daily basis creatively? That's pretty incredible. — Melonie Diaz

Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one. — Junot Diaz

She watched hungrily for visitors from out of town, threw open her arms at the slightest hint of a wind and at night she struggled Jacob-like against the ocean pressing down on her. — Junot Diaz

You breathe nonstop, like a marathon runner, but it doesn't help. — Junot Diaz

Called her a whore and attacked her walls, tearing down her posters and throwing her books everywhere. I found out because some whitegirl ran up and said, Excuse me, but your stupid roommate is going insane, and I had to bolt upstairs and put him in a headlock. — Junot Diaz

I've been sent down to the minor leagues six or seven times in my career. You've just got to have that stability. It's huge. It's comforting. And it's reassuring. To be part of something in this world that's constantly changing like baseball, it's awesome to have your hope anchored in something that's so stable. — Matt Diaz

He was our Sauron, our Arawn, our Darkseid, our Once and Future Dictator, a personaje so outlandish, so perverse, so dreadful that not even a sci-fi writer could have made his ass up. — Junot Diaz

For Oscar, high school was the equivalent of a medieval spectacle, like being put in the stocks and forced to endure the peltings and outrages of a mob of deranged half-wits, an experience from which he supposed he should have emerged a better person, but that's not really what happened - and if there were any lessons to be gleaned from the ordeal of those years he never quite figured out what they were. He walked into school every day like the fat lonely nerdy kid he was, and all he could think about was the day of his manumission, when he would at last be set free from its unending horror. Hey, Oscar, are there faggots on Mars? - Hey, Kazoo, catch this. The first time he heard the term moronic inferno he know exactly where it was located and who were its inhabitants. — Junot Diaz

People like her got addictive personalities. You don't want to be catching that. — Junot Diaz

People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong. — Junot Diaz

Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years. — Junot Diaz

Student today don't mean na', but in a Latin America whipped into a frenzy by the Fall of Arbenz, by the Stoning of Nixon, by the Guerrillas of the Sierra Madre, by the endless cynical maneuverings of the Yankee Pig Dogs - in a Latin America already a year and half into the Decade of the Guerrilla - a student was something else altogether, an agent for change, a vibrating quantum string in the staid Newtonian universe. — Junot Diaz

I'm not really in any competition with anyone, I'm not in any race. — Cameron Diaz

Here at last is her smile: burn it into your memory; you won't see it often. — Junot Diaz

I don't remember her name, but I do remember how her perm shone in the glow of our night-light. — Junot Diaz

As the whole conquest never put the crown to any expense. — Bernal Diaz Del Castillo

I was part of that group of kids growing up in the '80s under the Reagan regime, what I used to call 'living in the shadow of Dr. Manhattan,' where we would have dreams all the time that New York City was being destroyed, and that that wall of light and destruction was rolling out and would just devour our neighborhood. — Junot Diaz

There are a couple of strategies for writing about an absence or writing about a loss. One can create the person that was lost, develop the character of the fiancee. There's another strategy that one can employ, maybe riskier ... Make the reader suffer the loss of the character in a more literal way. — Junot Diaz

I do think that we all draw limits and I feel like part of the work of an artist is it shouldn't be fun. This shouldn't be comfortable. I'm not looking to make people feel unsafe, but I am looking to make people feel uncomfortable. — Junot Diaz

My Latin roots are very strong. All my life, because I'm blonde and blue-eyed, people who aren't Hispanic can't believe I am. And people who are Hispanic always think I'm not, because I don't look like them. Being Latin is part of who I am and I bring that part to every role. — Cameron Diaz

On one DR trip you drive up to La Vega and put her name out there. You show a picture, too, like a private eye. It is of the two of you, the one time you went to the beach, to Sandy Hook. Both of you are smiling. Both of you blinked. — Junot Diaz

Books deliver information so that experience has a chance to exercise creativity. — Richard Diaz

I was seventeen and a half, smoking so much bud that if I remembered an hour from any one of those days it would have been a lot. — Junot Diaz

I have always had the same New Year resolutions: To stop smoking, to start wearing a bra, and to stop shopping. — Cameron Diaz

You live in a world where you can drive through the drive-thru, flop down in a chair to work all day, and spend your evening on the couch, in front of the TV, before you crawl off to your cozy bed. Even if you work hard all day, your day-to-day living can make your body soft. And that softness is a modern-day killer, the equivalent of the savanna-dweller's lion (actually, the lion was better, since it kept people moving). — Cameron Diaz

Sexuality and love can be different things. I can be attracted to a woman sexually, but it doesn't mean I want to be in love with a woman. If I'm going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn't mean I'm a lesbian. We put these restraints and definitions on people, but it's hard to define. — Cameron Diaz

Students teach all sorts of things but most importantly they make explicit the courage that it takes to be a learner, the courage it takes to open yourself to the transformative power of real learning and that courage I am exposed to almost every day at MIT and that I'm deeply grateful for. — Junot Diaz

I like to think I'm just talkin' in my defense. — Nick Diaz

I have three storage units, and that's no lie. Three storage units. All books. — Junot Diaz

As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality. — Junot Diaz

We all know that there are language forms that are considered impolite and out of order, no matter what truths these languages might be carrying. If you talk with a harsh, urbanized accent and you use too many profanities, that will often get you barred from many arenas, no matter what you're trying to say. On the other hand, polite, formal language is allowed almost anywhere even when all it is communicating is hatred and violence. Power always privileges its own discourse while marginalizing those who would challenge it or that are the victims of its power. — Junot Diaz

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

Our relationship wasn't the sun, the moon, the stars, but it wasn't bullshit, either. — Junot Diaz

She was one of those golden mulatas that French-speaking Caribbeans call chabines, that my boys call chicas de oro; she had snarled, apocalyptic hair, copper eyes, and was one whiteskinned relative away from jaba. — Junot Diaz

In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead. — Junot Diaz

You never forget the discovery years. First kisses. The first time you try certain foods. — Junot Diaz

Like most lit nerds, I'm a voracious reader. I never got enough poetry under my belt growing up but I do read it - some of my favorites, Gina Franco and Angela Shaw and Cornelius Eady and Kevin Young, remind me daily that unless the words sing and dance, what's the use of putting them down on paper. — Junot Diaz

Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him. — Junot Diaz

That which is good for the society is not necessarily good for the individual. That which is good for the individual is good for the society. — Richard Diaz

For reasons unexplained, every person in the world is born with a large gaping hole in the center of their chest...while not uncomfortable, it is widely considered unsightly, and pretty much everyone tries to fill it with something...some people fill it with religion, others just buy a bunch of stuff, and some even fill it with other folks...I left mine alone, though, because I found out if you run against the wind at just the right angle, it makes a whistling noise. — Aaron Diaz

It took me sixteen years to write. — Junot Diaz

Poor Oscar. Without even realizing it he'd fallen into one of those Let's Be Friends Vortexes, the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love's version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women. — Junot Diaz

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

Pampering your down-turned lips kills time when you are out on a date with some creep boring you to death. You can go to the loo, pull out your make-up bag and fantasize about all the people you would prefer to be with: Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson, Eddie Redmayne, Cameron Diaz. — Chloe Thurlow

I admire Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. I like a lot of comedians. I like Cameron Diaz - she's funny and has a very light spirit. That's quite rare nowadays. There are many actresses I admire. — Catherine Deneuve

I feel most like myself ... after I run - I go out for five miles every morning. — Junot Diaz

With the sun sliding out of the sky like spit off a wall ... — Junot Diaz

Beauty [is] a kind of radiance. People who possess a true inner beauty, their eyes are a little brighter, their skin a little more dewy. They vibrate at a different frequency. — Cameron Diaz

Ask any of your elders and they will tell you: Trujillo might have been a dictator, but, he was a Dominican dictator, which is another way of saying he was the number-one bellaco in the country. — Junot Diaz

Clavo saca clavo. Nothing sacas nothing, you reply. No one will ever be like her. — Junot Diaz

I was in fact pretty much - by the larger culture, by the local culture, by people around me, by people on TV - encouraged to imagine women as something slightly inferior to men. — Junot Diaz

We didn't know it was the last days but we should have. — Junot Diaz

You had an elaborate system that you thought would keep us out of bed: you sat on the other side of the room, you didn't let me crack your knuckles, you never stayed more than fifteen minutes. It never really worked, did it? — Junot Diaz

I'm like every other woman: a closet full of clothes, but nothing to wear: So I wear jeans. — Cameron Diaz

The British are so incestuous. They pass around partners like they're passing popcorn at a movie. — Cameron Diaz

We hurt each other too well to let it drop — Junot Diaz

Spin is 'something is beautiful because we say it's beautiful.' — Junot Diaz

Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship. — Lincoln Diaz-Balart

A good Policeman/woman looks for crimes. A bad policeman/woman looks for opportunity. — Richard Diaz

Never had the opportunity in her first lost childhood; and in the intervening years her desire for it had doubled over and doubled over like a katana being forged until finally it was sharper than the truth. — Junot Diaz

I'm someone who loves to enjoy life and tries to focus on real things and real friendships. That's why I live very simply. I'm a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl. I don't spend much time fixing myself up or trying to look cool. I live like a normal person and even though I'm in a very high-profile business, I really don't let it affect the way I live. — Cameron Diaz

I already told you it's over, he snaps. What else do you want? A maldito corpse? You women never know how to leave things alone. You never know how to let go. — Junot Diaz

I'm a pretty girl who's a model who doesn't suck as an actress. — Cameron Diaz

'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening. — Junot Diaz

Only Puerto Rican girl on the earth who wouldn't give up the ass for any reason. I can't, she said. I can't make any mistakes ... Paloma was convinced that if she made any mistakes in the next two years, any mistakes at all, she would be stuck in that family of hers forever. That was her nightmare. Imagine if I don't get in anywhere, she said. You'd still have me, you tried to reassure her, but Paloma looked at you like the apocalypse would be preferable. — Junot Diaz

The next stage, culture shock or cultural fatigue, may follow as the newcomer is increasingly frustrated by disorienting cultural cues. Deprivation of the familiar may cause a loss of self-esteem, depression, anger, or withdrawal. The severity of this shock will vary as a function of the personality of the individual, the emotional support available, and the perceived or actual differences between the two cultures. — Lynne T. Diaz-Rico

Cinema is the greatest mirror of humanity's struggle. You see this alternative world, but you're part of it. Everybody is part of it. This is our world. — Lav Diaz

One of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away. — Junot Diaz

I doubt that I can speak for all Dominican men but I doubt they can either. — Junot Diaz

If you're getting paid more than me, I'm definitely more excited about this ass whoopin I'm gonna put down on you. — Nick Diaz

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

I was really drawn to thinking about the women in my life. Thinking about my mother, who's a very powerful force on me. And I have these two very strong sisters who took up a lot of imaginary space in my life. — Junot Diaz

I did a show back when I was in high school - so I was about 17 - and it was the first time I was on stage. I never even thought about being an actor before that, but after that experience, I knew it was what I wanted to do. — Guillermo Diaz

My African roots made me what I am today. They're the reason I exist at all. — Junot Diaz

I love the truth. Whether it's painful or wonderful, it always widens my perspective and changes me. It helps move me forward. — Madi Diaz

Don't you know that when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not. — Cameron Diaz

Once someone gets a little escape velocity going, ain't no play in the world that will keep them from leaving. — Junot Diaz

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. — Junot Diaz

The foundation of youth [for me] ... lots of water, lots of laughter, lots of sex. — Cameron Diaz

Loving the process. I learn it over and again and in different ways. I'm speaking particularly to the musical process, but I definitely think that this lesson transcends. Loving the life process. Loving the process of becoming stronger by experiencing something that makes me feel unsteady. The process of speaking and living my truth and making my own path. — Madi Diaz

Nobody warned me that when you fall in love, you really fall in love forever. — Junot Diaz

By the time I got to high school, I didn't play anything but baseball because I was on a mission. I really wanted to get a scholarship. I really wanted to focus all my time and efforts on baseball. When I got up to Florida State, God spoke to me very clearly and called me out of that and called me into music, which up until that point had just been a hobby. — Jonny Diaz

You hear mothers say all the time that they would die for their children, but my mom never said shit like that. She didn't have to. When it came to my brother, it was written across her face in 112-point Tupac Gothic. — Junot Diaz

One of my top priorities in Congress is to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. — Lincoln Diaz-Balart

I certainly couldn't have survived my childhood without books. All that deprivation and pain
abuse, broken home, a runaway sister, a brother with cancer
the books allowed me to withstand. They sustained me. I read still, prolifically, with great passion, but never like I read in those days: in those days it was life or death. — Junot Diaz

Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power. — Junot Diaz

I guess it's true what they say: if you wait long enough everything changes. — Junot Diaz

There's round-winners, and there's fighters. — Nate Diaz

I can easily go to America, or I can easily escape to some places in Europe with friends. But the place for me is the Philippines. The struggle is there. I cannot turn my back on it. It's a responsibility. — Lav Diaz

The novelistic attribute of my work is very much like the Russian way of creating novels. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky - their work has so many gaps. But for the reader, you cannot erase those gaps because they are important. They contextualize the whole struggle. My cinema is like that. — Lav Diaz

I was like, "Excuse me, guys. My ass is going to be facing this way. Do you mind maybe just standing over there during this take because something is going to happen." — Cameron Diaz

I have to remind my dad, 'Journalists - no matter how many cigars they smoke with you - are not your friends, so don't talk to them.' — Cameron Diaz

We're all works in progress, Diaz. We're all broken and bleeding and trying to fix ourselves up into something human. — Allison Van Diepen