Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.
Julia AlvarezEach of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.
Julia AlvarezEveryone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.
Julia AlvarezFor me, the writing life doesn't just happen when I sit at the writing desk. It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in. 'My heart keeps open house,' was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem. And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world.
Julia Alvarez