Quotes from Island Beneath the Sea

Isabel Allende ·  457 pages

Rating: (26.4K votes)


“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“There is room in the human heart for all the divinities.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“She intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Music is a wind that blows away the years, memories, and fear, that crouching animal I carry inside me.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea



“الأم و الوطن لا يمكن المزاح فيهما: إنهما مقدسان.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“I strike the ground with the soles of my feet and life rises up my legs, spreads up my skeleton, takes possession of me, drives away distress and sweetens my memory. The world trembles.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“لقد صار لدينا تاريخ مشترك، يمكننا النظر إلى الماض ورواية أحداث الأيام التي عشناها معاً، وحساب الأحزان و الأفراح، هكذا يصنع الحب، دون تسرع، ويوماً بيوم”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Sometimes I have these premonitions and I don't forget them, so I will be prepared when they happen.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Zacharie did not learn of the sorrow his wife was living becasue she was careful to hide it. Tete kept that first love, the stromngest in her life, a secret. She mentioned it only rarely because she could not offer Zacharie a passion of the same intensity; the relationship they shared was genntle and free of urgency.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea



“قبر مبهر!، انه الشيء الوحيد الذي يبقى، فبعد مئة سنة سيتمكن زائروا المقبرة من الاعجاب بقبري و سيتخيلون أنني عشت حياة طيبة”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“As Sancho said, money does not buy happiness but it does buy nearly everything else.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Dance, dance, Zarité, the slave who dances is free…while he is dancing,” he told me. I have always danced.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“العبد الذي يرقص هو عبدٌ حر طالما هو يرقص”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Long before the Europeans arrived in Africa, the blacks were enslaving each other. They still do,” said Valmorain. “Just as whites are enslaving each other, monsieur,” the physician countered. “Not all Negroes are slaves, nor all slaves black. Africa is a continent of free people. Millions of Africans are subjected to slavery but many more are free. Slavery is not their destiny, just as is also the case with thousands of whites who are slaves.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea



“Capitaine Etienne Relais was known to be incorruptible in an ambience in which vice was the norm, honor for sale, and laws made to be broken, and men operated on the assumption that he who did not abuse power did not deserve to have it.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“That was the beginning of the revolution. Many years have gone by and blood keeps running, soaking the soil of Haiti, but I am not there to weep.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“إن القداسة ثقيلة الوطأ حقاً يا تيتي، عليك أن تهربي من الأب انطوان وإلا ستنتهين إلى عجوز هرمة مثل الأخت لوسي”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“لم يكن يقدم نصائح لأنه أكتشف من خلال تجاربه أنها إضاعة للوقت، فكل شخص يرتكب أخطاءه ويتعلم منها”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Leanne lighted an oil lamp and they continued until the moment came to receive the baby. 'Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born,' Tete prayed aloud. 'Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you,' Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea



“How would I run with my bad leg? And what would become of the people who need my care? Besides, it doesn't mean anything for me to be free and everyone else slaves," the healer answered. Tete hadn't thought of that, and it kept buzzing around her brain like a bottlefly. She talked about it with her godmother many times, but she was never able to accept the idea that her freedom was irreparably bound to that of the other slaves.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“النقود لاتشتري السعادة، ولكنها تشتري كل ماعدا ذلك تقريبًا”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead,, that is their incentive.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“I called him Grandfather, because according to him you do not have to be of the same blood or same tribe to be a member of the same family, but in truth I should have called him Maman. He was the only mother I ever knew.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“There was an army of hundreds of thousands of spirits fighting alongside the blacks, and that was why finally the whites were defeated. Everyone is in agreement about that, even the French soldiers, who felt the spirits’ fury. Maître Valmorain, who did not believe in anything he did not understand, and as he understood very little believed in nothing, was also convinced that the dead aided the rebels.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea



“In her experience, light skin and money made almost anything easier. She wanted her grandchildren to come into the world with an advantage.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Walking and walking across the world he will gradually find consolation, and one day, when he is too fatigued to take another step, he will realize that he cannot escape sorrow, he will have to tame it, so it doesn’t harass him.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“His wife, Leanne, who came to his waist, looked like an undernourished adolescent with the face of a fly, but her fragility was deceptive: she had given birth to six male children and was expecting the seventh. She knew it would be male because God was determined to test her patience.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


“Leanne lighted an oil lamp and they continued until the moment came to receive the baby. “Erzulie, mother loa, help it be born,” Tété prayed aloud. “Saint Raymond Nonatus, pay attention, do not let an African saint get ahead of you,” Leanne answered in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Island Beneath the Sea


About the author

Isabel Allende
Born place: in Lima, Peru
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“هل تخاف اليوم الآخر يا خيام؟
ولم أخاف؟ فبعد الموت إما العدم وإما الرحمة
وما ارتكبت من سوء؟
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― Amin Maalouf, quote from Samarkand


“His touch was like a bard's on his instrument, and it awakened a deep and mysterious music in my body.”
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“[Y]ou have to stop loving and pursuing Christ in order to sin. When you are pursuing love, running toward Christ, you do not have opportunity to wonder, *Am I doing this right?* or *Did I serve enough this week?* When you are running toward Christ, you are freed up to serve, love, and give thanks without guilt, worry or fear. As long as you are running, you're safe.”
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