A Quote by Isabel Allende

Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy. — © Isabel Allende
Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.
Barrabas came to us by the sea.
I live in New York, and Clara lives in Recife. The character is Brazilian, and as I read the script, I felt like Kleber [Mendonca] had been spying on me in order to create this role [in Aquarius]. Clara and I have different backgrounds. I come from an intuitive world, and she's an academic, but when we got together, we really became one. There are many times when I'm watching the film where Clara will say something, and I will find myself agreeing with her. It was the first time that I had this weird sensation that the character I played is so me, but yet it's so her.
One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
The name 'Clara' is significant in my life. When I was an adolescent and started thinking about my place in the world as an adult and growing up, I knew I would have an eventually new outlook on things and eventually meet someone and have a kid. In my mind, I was like, 'If I have a daughter, I want to name her Clara.'
I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.
When a woman feels the first grip of her child's dependence upon her, she has forever lost her freedom. If the child dies, a grave shackles her soul through life. If the child lives, the welfare of that child keeps perpetually between her and the sun.
The hardest role that I've ever tried to play was Clara Johnson in 'Light in the Piazza' at Lincoln Center. It was the least fun I've ever had, but the most beautiful experience I've ever had. I could not understand her. I could not put my feet in her shoes. I came home every night, and I was depressed.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.
The sea can bind us to her many moods, whispering to us by the subtle token of a shadow or a gleam upon the waves, and hinting in these ways of her mournfulness or rejoicing. Always she is remembering old things, and these memories, though we may not grasp them, are imparted to us, so that we share her gaiety or remorse.
I just realized the other day that Clara [in Aquarius] and I are now going to be apart year by year. She's still 65, and I'm 66 now. When you make a movie, it preserves you at a certain age, and it's so wonderful that Clara has preserved me at 65. People are talking about her age in a way that is positive and respectful, which is so wonderful.
I wrote for Roseanne. I wrote her stand-up act with her. I wrote with Tom Arnold. There was a period when I was working with them pretty steadily. But I would take brief gigs here and there.
I think the relationship [in Aquarius] with her nephew shows that she's not nostalgic. She just wants to preserve what is important to her - her records, her books, even some furniture. She doesn't want to leave that house because it is her home. That is where her kids were born. After moving so much in my life, I was touched by Clara's need to stay in that apartment. I love her life, and that may be why I connected to her so strongly. We are the most alike when we are fighting for our rights.
I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.
I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.
But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.
If I had known there was such a thing as Islamic Calligraphy, I would never have started to paint. I have strived to reach the highest levels of artistic mastery, but I found that Islamic Calligraphy was there ages before I was.
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