What a writer wants to do is not what he does. Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes by Jorge Luis Borges More Quotes From Jorge Luis Borges In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel. Jorge Luis Borges dreamwritingthinking All literature, is, finally autobiographical. Jorge Luis Borges literaturewriting Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety. Jorge Luis Borges libraryguiltyknowing My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read. Jorge Luis Borges runningfatherbook No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist. Jorge Luis Borges heromenworld When you reach my age, you realize you couldn't have done things very much better or much worse than you did them in the first place. Jorge Luis Borges doneagefirsts You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well. Jorge Luis Borges dollarsdifferentway People think that I've committed myself to idealism, to solipsism, or to doctrines of the cabala, because I've used them in my tales. But really I was only trying to see what could be done with them. On the other hand, it might be argued that if I use them it's because I was feeling an affinity to them. Of course, that's true. Jorge Luis Borges handspeoplethinking Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me. Jorge Luis Borges airseamen The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to construct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time. Jorge Luis Borges ambitionexercisebook Kafka had the sense of guilt. I don't think I have because I don't believe in free will. Because what I have done has been done, well, for me or through me. But I haven't done it really. But I don't believe in free will, I can't feel guilty. Jorge Luis Borges guiltbelievethinking Fame is a form, perhaps the worst form, of incomprehension. Jorge Luis Borges worstformfame The man who has learned that three plus one are four doesn't have to go through a proof of that assertion with coins, or dice, or chess pieces, or pencils. He knows it, and that's that. He cannot conceive a different sum. There are mathematicians who say that three plus one is a tautology for four, a different way of saying "four" ... If three plus one can be two, or fourteen, then reason is madness. Jorge Luis Borges chess-piecesmentwo Lully's machine, Mill's fear and Lasswitz's chaotic library can be the subject of jokes, but they exaggerate a propensity which is common: making metaphysics and the arts into a kind of play with combinations. Jorge Luis Borges libraryplayart The mathematical sciences wield their particular language made of digits and signs, no less subtle than any other. Jorge Luis Borges subtlemathematicslanguage The people of Tlön are taught that the act of counting modifies the amount counted, turning indefinites into definites. The fact that several persons counting the same quantity come to the same result is for the psychologists of Tlön an example of the association of ideas or of memorization. Jorge Luis Borges examplepeopleideas The poverty of yesterday was less squalid than the poverty we purchase with our industry today. Fortunes were smaller then as well. Jorge Luis Borges povertyyesterdaytoday On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance. Jorge Luis Borges distanceflowerdog In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem. Jorge Luis Borges oceaneyeyears Imprecision is tolerable and verisimilar in literature, because we always tend towards it in life. Jorge Luis Borges tolerableliteraturelife
