There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless. Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes From Jorge Luis Borges Time is the tiger that devours me, but I am that tiger. Jorge Luis Borges tigers Art is very mysterious. I wonder if you can really do any damage to art. I think that when we're writing, something comes through or should come through, in spite of our theories. So theories are not really important. Jorge Luis Borges writingartthinking While we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another one Jorge Luis Borges this-worldinspirationalworld In Spanish it is very difficult to make things flow, because words are over-long. But in English, you have light words. Jorge Luis Borges difficult My undertaking is not difficult, essentially. I should only have to be immortal to carry it out. Jorge Luis Borges immortaldifficultshould Reality is not always probable, or likely. Jorge Luis Borges probable-causelifereality I saw a sunset in Queretaro that seemed to reflect the color of a rose in Bengal. Jorge Luis Borges sunsetsawsrose It's a shame that we have to choose between two such second-rate countries as the USSR and the USA. Jorge Luis Borges usatwocountry This web of time--the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore eachother through the centuries--embrace every posibility. Jorge Luis Borges embraceapproachcentury To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal. Jorge Luis Borges cornyignorantmen The things that are said in literature are always the same. What is important is the way they are said. Jorge Luis Borges importantliteratureway Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. Jorge Luis Borges pronunciationrememberart We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors. Jorge Luis Borges mirrorsmemoriesmuseums I have tried (I am not sure how successfully) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple; there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth -\-\ for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its complexity. Jorge Luis Borges simpleearthwriting It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. Jorge Luis Borges arbitrarysimpleknowledge Emma dropped the paper. Her first impression was of a weak feeling in her stomach and in her knees; then of blind guilt, of unreality, of coldness, of fear; then she wished that it were already the next day. Immediately afterwards she realized that that wish was futile because the death of her father was the only thing that had happened in the world, and it would go on happening endlessly. Jorge Luis Borges next-dayfeelingsfather Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality. Jorge Luis Borges planesnovelreality Censorship is the mother of metaphor. Jorge Luis Borges censorshipmetaphormother A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships Jorge Luis Borges isolatedaxesbook Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary. Jorge Luis Borges writingbookideas
