The Infinite Plan Quotes

“Be careful what you ask of Heaven; it might be granted.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“When a man’s earning his living doing things he doesn’t like, he feels like a slave; when he’s doing what he loves, he feels like a prince.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Me reconcilié conmigo mismo, me acepté con un poco de benevolencia y entonces tuve mi primer atisbo de paz. Creo que ese fue el instante preciso en que tomé conciencia de quien soy en realidad y me sentí por fin en control de mi destino”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Cada persona nace con una sola gracia y la felicidad consiste en descubrirla a tiempo...”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Life was beautiful, and America was truly “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” a land where someone like Gregory could become President; all you had to do was stay pure of heart, love God and your mother, be forever faithful to one girl, respect the law, defend the weak, and scorn money—because heroes never expected to be compensated.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“You must see a psychiatrist, son, she often suggested, and get help with your problems; you can overcome the flaws in your character; but Timothy's response was that without the flaws he would not have any character left.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Con el tiempo uno se acostumbra: la peor perversión, lo más obsceno de la guerra, es que a uno le parece normal.”
― Isabel Allende, El plan infinito

“Los soldados aguardaron, cavando trincheras y amontonando sacos de tierra y piedras para formar una barricada, no tanto por la esperanza de protegerse, sino para distraer el miedo”
― Isabel Allende, El plan infinito

“and I had to sink to the very bottom to obtain it. At the moment my world caved in on me, when I had nothing left, I discovered I didn’t feel depressed, I felt free. I realized that the most important thing was not, as I had imagined, to survive or be successful; the most important thing was the search for my soul, which I had left behind in the quicksand of my childhood. When I found it, I learned that the power I had wasted such desperate energy to gain had always been inside me. I was reconciled with myself, I accepted myself with a touch of kindness, and then, and only then, was rewarded with my first glimpse of peace. I think that was the precise instant I became aware of who I truly am, and at last felt in control of my destiny.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“to the very bottom to obtain it. At the moment my world caved in on me, when I had nothing left, I discovered I didn’t feel depressed, I felt free. I realized that the most important thing was not, as I had imagined, to survive or be successful; the most important thing was the search for my soul, which I had left behind in the quicksand of my childhood. When I found it, I learned that the power I had wasted such desperate energy to gain had always been inside me. I was reconciled with myself, I accepted myself with a touch of kindness, and then, and only then, was rewarded with my first glimpse of peace. I think that was the precise instant I became aware of who I truly am, and at last felt in control of my destiny.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Do you think someone could still fall in love with me?” “You should ask instead if you yourself can fall in love. Happiness comes from love that’s given.” “I don’t have any doubt that I have love to give.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“There’s hope, but the twenty years she lost she can never get back.” “That’s a terrifying idea. It means that with every step we cement a piece of our history; we carry all our desires and thoughts and actions with us forever. If that’s true, we are our past. My father used to preach about the consequences of every act we commit and our responsibilities within the spiritual order of the universe; he said that everything we do comes back to us, and that sooner or later we pay for the evil and benefit from the good.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“invalid,” Ming O’Brien explained. “You can’t carry the responsibility for another person forever; a moment comes when you grow weary and you let them fall; they feel betrayed and, naturally, detest you. That’s what happened with your wives, with some of your friends, some of your clients, and nearly all your employees,”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“One by one I examined all my relationships—children, friends, employees—and on one of those Tuesdays experienced a true epiphany: all my life I had surrounded myself with weak persons in the unspoken hope that in exchange for looking after them I would receive a little affection, or at least gratitude.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“I didn’t have a hint what communion was in love. Olga had taught me that sex is the instrument and love the music, but I didn’t learn the lesson until now, as I near the half-century mark—but I suppose it’s better late than never.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“There are no such things as failure and success, Greg; those are gringo inventions. You just live, that’s all, the best you can, a little every day; it’s like a journey without a destination: it’s the getting there that counts.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Love is music, and sex is only the instrument,”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“It isn’t the morality or justice of this war we question, and no one wants to know about our own dead, much less that of the enemy; what royally ticks us off is that we’re not winning and are going to have to slink out of there with our tail between our legs.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“The aim had shifted from the pursuit of truth, from punishing the guilty and compensating the victim—as he had been taught in his law classes—to winning by any means; to be successful you had to know the most recherché legal loopholes and use them to advantage.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“The law was a web of bureaucratic intricacies, and the trick consisted in being the spider and not the fly; the judicial system had become an aggregate of regulations so entangled they no longer served the purpose for which they had been created, and far from expediting justice had made it extremely difficult to achieve.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“He had sworn not to behave like so many other veterans, hooked forever on the nostalgia of the only momentous event in their lives, crippled in spirit, unable to adapt to everyday routine or to rid themselves of the multiple addictions acquired in the war.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“that explains why we keep on fighting wars. Joan and Susan maintain that war is a way for old machos to eliminate young men; they hate them and fear them and don’t want to share anything with them, not women or power or money, because they know that sooner or later the younger men will depose them. That’s the reason they send the young to their deaths, even if it’s their own sons.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“But wars aren’t won in the air or at sea, they’re won on land, inch by inch, man to man.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Carmen, Timothy, Mike, and Tina. “No one is grateful for being made an invalid,” Ming O’Brien explained. “You can’t carry the responsibility for another person forever; a moment comes when you grow weary and you let them fall; they feel betrayed and, naturally, detest you.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan

“Now that I have overcome so much pain and can read my destiny like a map full of errors, when I feel no pity for myself and can review my existence without sentimentality, because I have found relative peace, I only lament the loss of innocence. I miss the idealism of my youth, of the time when there was still a clear dividing line between good and evil for me and I believed that it was possible to always act in accordance with immovable principles.”
― Isabel Allende, The Infinite Plan