Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone. Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes From Jorge Luis Borges The central problem of novel-writing is causality. Jorge Luis Borges causalityproblemwriting Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor. Jorge Luis Borges unforgivable-sinsplendorsin My father and he had cemented one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether. Jorge Luis Borges tearsfriendshipfather I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes. Jorge Luis Borges eventsknowingway There are those who seek the love of a woman to forget her, to not think about her. Jorge Luis Borges forgetthinking You will reply that reality hasn't the slightest need to be of interest. And I'll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber. Jorge Luis Borges lyingrealityinteresting Time broadens the scope of verses and I know of some which, like music, are everything for all men. Jorge Luis Borges versesscopemen I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks. Jorge Luis Borges knownstatesgreek Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic. Jorge Luis Borges concreteindividualart I don't think we're capable of knowledge, but I like to keep an open mind. So if you ask me whether I believe in an afterlife or not, whether I believe in God or not, I can only answer you that all things are possible. And if all things are possible, heaven and hell and the angels are also possible. They're not to be ruled out. Jorge Luis Borges angelbelievethinking I secretly assumed, as poets do, Jorge Luis Borges poetdutymoon As the end approaches, there are no longer any images from memory - there are only words. Jorge Luis Borges approachendsmemories In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them. Jorge Luis Borges finalsreadingliterature I don't think I can really believe in doomsday; I could hardly believe in rewards and punishments, in heaven or hell. As I wrote down in one of my sonnets - I seem to be always plagiarizing, imitating myself or somebody else for that matter - I think I am quite unworthy of heaven or of hell, and even of immortality. Jorge Luis Borges punishmentbelievethinking A . . . poet is a discoverer rather than an inventor. Jorge Luis Borges inventorpoet For myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end. Jorge Luis Borges mythendsliterature Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read. Jorge Luis Borges simplebookart There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite. Jorge Luis Borges upsetevilinspirational The steps a man takes from the day of his birth until that of his death trace in time an inconcievable figure. The Divine Mind intuitively grasps that form immediately, as men do a triangle. Jorge Luis Borges godmindmen The European and the North American consider that a book that has been awarded any kind of prize must be good; the Argentine allows for the possibility that the book might not be bad, despite the prize. Jorge Luis Borges kindmightbook
