A Quote by Junot Diaz

Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family. — © Junot Diaz
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
What I like about narrative in general is when there is some incongruity between the form and content. Let's say, mixing up the gothic with a coming-of-age narrative. Telling a love story that's also a monster story. Mixing up superhero tropes with your monster tropes. I like category confusion.
Memory is a drug. Memory can hold you against your strength and against your will.
One thing that's a lot harder to put into stories than you'd think is the idea of a traditional monster, because monsters with a capital 'M' don't inherently lend themselves to a story about your character. Unless one of your characters is themselves the monster, simply having a monster leads to a chase or a hunt.
I told them I wouldn't sign a blank cheque.
It seems to me, that this, too, is how memory works. What we remember of what was done to us shapes our view, molds us, sets our stance. But what we remember is past, it no longer exists, and yet we hold on to it, live by it, surrender so much control to it. What do we become when we put down the scripts written by history and memory, when each person before us can be seen free of the cultural or personal narrative we've inherited or devised? When we, ourselves, can taste that freedom.
My memory was never loaded with anything but blank cartridges.
The only way you can acquire anything is by writing a cheque. At the end of the day you're writing a personal cheque, which tends to concentrate the mind.
I think when things get hard with your family, it's really easy to want to isolate yourself. The world is so harsh, so when stuff happens outside, you want to go to your family, but when stuff happens inside your family, you sort of start to feel like, 'I'm alone. There is no place I can go to where just nothing will happen to me.'
Racing serves as a formal demonstration of your ability to ride the three-headed monster. The first monster is your physical preparation-lifting weights for strength, running for endurance, working on your technique. The second monster is your mental preparation-all our jabbering about humility, battling for your life, taking complete responsibility for the outcome. The last monster is your X Factor, your soul, your courage. Taken altogether, I call this three-headed monster the Process of Winning.
It's unnatural to fight somebody who has nothing against you and never did anything to you or to your family, who never stole anything from you. And now you've got to go and try to dismantle this guy.
Those who do not put clear limits on migration will soon start to feel like strangers in their own land.
When you feel your family is being threatened and hurt, you speak up. And then you put your head down and go back about your business.
The front of a cheque alone gives someone enough information to steal your identity.
Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
Student: Sir, you said you must change the world. How can you change it, sir? Krishnamurti: What is the world? The world is where you live - your family, your friends, your neighbours. And your family, your friends, your neighbours can be extended and that is the world. Now, you are the centre of that world. That is the world you live in. Now how will you change the world? By changing yourself?
When I was about 7 years old, I had been labeled dyslexic. I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb. I would get angry. My legs would actually hurt when I was studying. My head ached. All through school and well into my career, I felt like I had a secret. When I'd go to a new school, I wouldn't want the other kids to know about my learning disability, but then I'd be sent off to remedial reading.
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