Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes From Jorge Luis Borges Poets, like the blind, can see in the dark. Jorge Luis Borges poet blind dark I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does. Jorge Luis Borges night memories thinking One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite. Jorge Luis Borges spheres ethics evil A system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to any one of such aspects. Jorge Luis Borges subordination aspect universe Every man should be capable of all ideas. Jorge Luis Borges should men ideas Chang Tzu tells us of a persevering man who after three laborious years mastered the art of dragon-slaying. For the rest of his days, he had not a single opportunity to test his skills. Jorge Luis Borges opportunity men art I confess that I have not cleared a path through all seven hundred pages, I confess to having examined only bits and pieces, and yet I know what it is, with that bold and legitimate certainty with which we assert our knowledge of a city, without ever having been rewarded with the intimacy of all the many streets it includes. Jorge Luis Borges cities path book Another school declares that all time has already transpired and that our life is only the crepuscular and no doubt falsified and mutilated memory or reflection of an irrecoverable process. Jorge Luis Borges reflection memories school Then he reflected that reality does not usually coincide with our anticipation of it; with a logic of his own he inferred that to forsee a circumstantial detail is to prevent its happening. Trusting in this weak magic, he invented, so that they would not happen, the most gruesome details. Jorge Luis Borges details magic reality A writer's work is the product of laziness. Jorge Luis Borges products laziness writing We (the indivisible divinity that works in us) have dreamed the world. We have dreamed it resistant, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and firm in time, but we have allowed slight, and eternal, bits of the irrational to form part of its architecture so as to know that it is false. Jorge Luis Borges divinity space world Time is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. Jorge Luis Borges time-management substance fire The two important facts I should say, are emotion, and then words arising from emotion. I don't think you can write in an emotionless way. If you attempt it, the result is artificial. I don't like that kind of writing. I think that if a poem is really great, you should think of it as having written itself despite the author. It should flow. Jorge Luis Borges important writing thinking A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated. Jorge Luis Borges rejection should-have writing The gods weave misfortunes for men, so that the generations to come will have something to sing about.” Mallarmé repeats, less beautifully, what Homer said; “tout aboutit en un livre,” everything ends up in a book. The Greeks speak of generations that will sing; Mallarmé speaks of an object, of a thing among things, a book. But the idea is the same; the idea that we are made for art, we are made for memory, we are made for poetry, or perhaps we are made for oblivion. But something remains, and that something is history or poetry, which are not essentially different. Jorge Luis Borges memories book art To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god. Jorge Luis Borges god love relationship What I'm really concerned about is reaching one person. And that person may be myself for all I know. Jorge Luis Borges reaching concerned may You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened. Jorge Luis Borges dream sleep lying Music, feelings of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, want to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have missed, or they are about to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation that is not produced is, perhaps, the esthetic event. Jorge Luis Borges events twilight feelings If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library. Jorge Luis Borges library names father
