When I read Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros as a freshman at Rutgers, it all clicked – that writing was all I wanted to do. It became my calling. Junot Diaz Read Quote
Even if you didn’t come from another country, the idea of how do you make a home somewhere new is common to anyone who’s either going to college, shifting towns. Junot Diaz Read Quote
I was, as a kid, really obsessed with reading… that was about as geeky as you could possibly get. Junot Diaz Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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. Junot Diaz Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Artists are not cheerleaders, and we’re not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we’re in. Junot Diaz Read Quote
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 Read Quote
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it. Junot Diaz Read Quote
