Jorge Luis Borges
Master of metaphysical fiction and labyrinths
Most quoted
"A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."
— from Interview with Richard Burgin, 1967
"A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face."
— from Epilogue to 'The Maker', 1960
"I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past."
— from The Garden of Forking Paths, 1944
All quotes by Jorge Luis Borges (325)
There is no such thing as an original work of art.
I don't write for posterity. I write for myself and for my friends.
The mirror and the encyclopedia are the two great enemies of man.
The universe is a book written in a language we do not understand.
I have always been more interested in the reader than in the writer.
To be a writer is to be a reader who writes.
The only way to be happy is to be ignorant.
I am a man who has read too many books.
The world is a text, and we are its interpreters.
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
I have always been a dreamer, and I have always believed in the power of dreams.
The universe is a series of mirrors, reflecting each other infinitely.
Every book is an infinite book.
The only way to escape the labyrinth is to imagine it.
I have always been more interested in ideas than in people.
To be a man is to be a problem.
The greatest adventure is to imagine.
I have always been more interested in the journey than in the destination.
The universe is a story, and we are its characters.
To be a writer is to be a god.
Contemporaries of Jorge Luis Borges
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).