Everything touches everything. Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes From Jorge Luis Borges When I write, I do it urged by an intimate necessity. I don't have in mind an exclusive public, or a public of multitudes, I don't think in either thing. I think about expressing what I want to say. I try to do it in the simplest way possible. Jorge Luis Borges mind writing thinking The art of writing is mysterious, the opinions we hold are ephemeral. Jorge Luis Borges ephemeral writing art The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men. Jorge Luis Borges simplicity men world The minotaur more than justifies the existence of the labyrinth. Jorge Luis Borges minotaur labyrinth existence Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him. Jorge Luis Borges oblivion flight life-is That is what always happens: we never know whether we are victors or whether we are defeated. Jorge Luis Borges defeated victory happens I think most people are more important than their opinions. Jorge Luis Borges important people thinking Islam asserts that on the unappealable Day of Judgment every perpetrator of the image of a living creature will be raised from the dead with his works, and he will be commanded to bring them to life, and he will fail, and be cast out with them into the fires of punishment. Jorge Luis Borges punishment islam fire I don't think esthetic schools are important. What is important is the use that is made of them, or whatever the individual writer does. Jorge Luis Borges important school thinking I am interested in the past. Perhaps one of the reasons is we cannot make, cannot change the past. I mean you can hardly unmake the present. But the past after all is merely to say a memory, a dream. You know my own past seems continually changed when I am remembering it, or reading things that are interesting to me. Jorge Luis Borges reading dream memories If you using local color in an unobtrusive way, it is all for the good. But if you stress it, the whole thing is artificial. But it should be used, I mean, it's not forbidden. But you don't have to stress it. Jorge Luis Borges forbidden stress mean Writing is only a guided dream. Jorge Luis Borges dream writing If a writer disbelieves what he is writing, then he can hardly expect his reader to believe it. Jorge Luis Borges worship writing believe When I feel I'm going to write something, then I just am quiet and I try to listen. Then something comes through. And I do what I can in order not to tamper with it. Jorge Luis Borges writing trying order I try to avoid purple patches, fine writing, all that kind of thing... because I think they're a mistake. And then sometimes it comes through and sometimes it doesn't, but that's not up to me. It's up to chance. Jorge Luis Borges mistake writing thinking I know that when I think of myself as being utterly worn out, when I think that somehow I have nothing more to write, then something is happening within me. And, in due course, it bubbles up; it comes to the surface, and then I do my best to listen. But there's nothing mystical about all this. I suppose all writers do the same. Jorge Luis Borges surface writing thinking I am attracted to fantastic writing, and fantastic reading, of course. But I think things that we call fantastic may be real, in the sense of being real symbols. Jorge Luis Borges real reading writing If I write a fantastic story, I'm not writing something willful. On the contrary, I am writing something that stands for my feelings, or for my thoughts. So that, in a sense, a fantastic story is as real and perhaps more real than a mere circumstantial story. Because after all, circumstances come and go, and symbols remain. Jorge Luis Borges real feelings writing Many people have thought of me as a thinker, as a philosopher, or even as a mystic. Well the truth is that though I have found reality perplexing enough - in fact, I find it gets more perplexing all the time - I never think of myself as a thinker. Jorge Luis Borges reality people thinking I think it's all to the good that a writer shouldn't be too famous. Because, in a country where a writer may be famous, he may be pandering to the mob, celebrity and so on. Jorge Luis Borges may country thinking
