Quotes from Portrait in Sepia

“Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“La verdadera amistad resiste el tiempo, la distancia y el silencio.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“I seek truth and beauty in the transparency of an autumn leaf, in the perfect form of a seashell on the beach, in the curve of a woman's back, in the texture of an ancient tree trunk, but also in the elusive forms of reality.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story. I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses the luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone of telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“لا شيء مجاني في هذا العالم، فمقابل هذه التفاهات ستدفع ثمنًا غاليًا جدًا.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“التصوير والكتابة هما محاولة للإمساك باللحظات قبل أن تتلاشى .”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“La memoria imprime en blanco y negro, los grises se pierden por el camino.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“- أنت تستحقين أكثر من أي كائن آخر أن تكوني سعيدة
- ومن قال لك إنني أرغب في أن أكون سعيدة ؟ هذا هو آخر نعت يخطر لي أن استخدمه لأصف المستقبل الذي أتطلع إليه. أريد حياة مشوقة، مغامرة، مختلفة، حماسية، أو أي صفة أخرى قبل أن تكون سعيدة.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“لا يكسب من يملك الحق، وإنّما من يحسن المساومة.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“لا يحتاج المرء إلى موهبة ليكون فنانًا، إنه بحاجة إلى الجرأة فقط.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evenesce, to untangle the confusion of my past. Every instant disappears in a breath and immediately becomes the past; reality is ephemeral and changing, pure longing.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Every time I asked a question, that magnificent teacher, instead of giving the answer, showed me how to find it. She taught me to organise my thoughts, to do research, to read and listen, to seek alternatives, to resolve old problems with new solutions, to argue logically. Above all, she taught me not to believe anything blindly, to doubt, and to question even what seemed irrefutably true, such as man's superiority over woman, or one race or social class over another.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“النَّاس لا يريدون صدقات، بل يريدون كسب عيشهم بكرامة.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“القتل يُكلّف قليلًا ، أما البقاء على قيد الحياة فهو الذي يُكلّف يا بُنيّ .”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“write with honesty and don't worry about the feelings of others, because no matter what you say, they'll hate you anyway.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“The most savory grape, the one that produces the wines with best texture and aroma, the sweetest and most generous, doesn't grow in rich soil but in stony land; the plant, with a mother's obstinacy, overcomes obstacles to thrust its roots deep into the ground and take advantage of every drop of water. That, my grandmother explained to me, is how flavors are concentrated in the grape.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Si fuera capaz de exteriorizar mis sentimientos, tal vez sufriría menos, pero se me quedan atorados adentro, como un inmenso bloque de hielo y pueden pasar años antes que el hielo empiece a derretirse.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“كل واحد يختار درجة اللون كي يحكي قصّته الخاصة؛ و بودّي أن اختار الوضوح الدائم لصورة مطبوعة بالبلاتين .. لكن ما من شيء في قدري يملك هذه الخاصّية المضيئة ؛أعيش بين صبغات باهتة وألغاز مخفيّة و عدم يقين .. واللون المناسب لرواية حياتي ينطبق أكثر مع لون صورة حائلة صورة "بالسبيا" .”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“No existe luz sin sombra, tal como no existe dicha sin dolor.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Cada uno escoge el tono para contar su propia historia; quisiera optar por la claridad durable de una impresión en platino, pero nada en mi destino posee esa luminosa cualidad. Vivo entre difusos matices, velados misterios, incertidumbres; el tono para contar mi vida se ajusta más al de un retrato en sepia...”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Esos desaires no me quitan el sueño: no tengo que agradar a todo el mundo, sólo a quienes en verdad me importan, que no son muchos.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“كانت صديقة الشحاذين وموسيقيي الشوارع؛ وتنفق أموالها على الترهات والصدقات .. كانت تقول لنفسها وهي تعدّ تجاعيدها بسعادة :ما من محرر مثل العمر .”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“The advantage of being lovers is that we have to work hard at our relationship, because everything conspires to drive us apart. Our decision to be together has to be renewed again and again; that keeps us on our toes.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Cada instante desaparece en un soplo y al punto se convierte en pasado, la realidad es efímera y migratoria, pura añoranza”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“Mediante la fotografía y la palabra escrita intento desesperadamente vencer la condición fugaz de mi existencia, atrapar los momentos antes de que se desvanezcan, despejar la confusión de mi pasado.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“If what you want is the effect of painting, then paint, Aurora. If what you want is truth, learn to use your camera," he would say again and again”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“La Lowell wanted nothing; she lived for the day, unfettered, free, fearless; she wasn't afraid of poverty, loneliness, or infirmity. She accepted everything with good grace; for her, life was an entertaining voyage that inevitably led to old age and death. There was no point in accumulating wealth since in the end, she maintained, we all go to the grave in our birthday suit.”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“لا تتصوّر كم أحسد الرجال من أمثالك؛ والعالم مسرح لهم”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“ليس هناك فقر اسوأ من فقر الأثرياء المفلسين؛ لأن عليهم أن يتظاهروا بما لايملكون”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

“لأن أباها كان يؤمن بأن الجهل هو الضمانة لخضوع النساء والفقراء .. وكانت تعرف بمشقة مبادىء الكتابة والحساب ، فهي لم تقرأ كتابًا واحدًافي حياتها وتحسب عمليات الجمع على أصابعها - لم تكن تطرح قط - ولكن كل ماتلمسه يداها يتحول إلى ثروة ؛
ترددت على البيت مجموعة من المعلمين ؛كان عدد منهم كهنة مستعدين لتعليمي مقابل المنح السخيّة التي تقدمها جدتي لجمعياتهم الدينية .. وقد كنت محظوظة إذ تعاملوا معي بتساهل ؛لأنهم ماكانوا ينتظرون من دماغي أن يستوعب مثل أدمغة الذكور .. أما ( دون خوان ريبيرو ) بالمقابل فكان يطالبني بالمزيد لأن على المرأة كما قال " أن تبذل من الجهد أكثر ألف مرة مما يبذله الرجل لتحرز مكانة فكرية أو فنية " .”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia

About the author

Popular quotes

“Well, if you’re talking about love, why did you bring up cocaine?”
― Natalie Standiford, quote from How to Say Goodbye in Robot

“Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., quote from Letter from the Birmingham Jail

“The officers entered the Clinic with Noda. Passing through the mouth-like lobby, they proceeded along endlessly winding corridors and stairways lit only by red night lights, like a journey through the innards of a body, before at last finding themselves on the fourth floor. Yamaji’s research had already told them that Inui lived on the fourth floor, but it would have been too dangerous to use the elevator. Elevators commonly appear in dreams as symbols of sexual desires. As such, they thought it highly probable that the elevator would be used for an attack from the subconscious.”
― Yasutaka Tsutsui, quote from Paprika

“But no one leaves. - Let us set out once more on our native roads, burdened with my vice, that vice that since the age of reason has driven roots of suffering into my side - that towers to heaven, beats me, hurls me down, drags me on.

Ultimate innocence, final timidity. All's said. Carry no more my loathing and treacheries before the world.

Come on! Marching, burdens, the desert, boredom and anger.

Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? - Through what blood wade?

Better to keep away from justice. - A hard life, outright stupor, - with a dried-out fist to lift the coffin lid, lie down, and suffocate. No old age this way, no danger: terror is very un-French.

- Ah! I am so forsaken I will offer at any shrine impulses toward perfection.

Oh my self-denial, my marvelous Charity! my Selfless love! And still here below!

De Profundis Domine, what an ass I am!”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from A Season in Hell

“No doubt some kind of war on drugs was a political inevitability, just as that war’s failure to thwart human desire was inevitable as well. But we might have saved ourselves from the psychic costs of the drug war—the utter alienation of an underclass from its government, the wedding of that alienation to a ruthless economic engine, and finally, the birth of an outlaw philosophy as ugly and enraged as hate and despair can produce—if we had embraced the common sense that comes with the paper bag.”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.