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)
The fact is that all writers create their precursors.
One thinks of Homer, who was blind and old when he sang the Iliad.
I have committed the worst of sins one can commit as a philosopher: I have invented a philosophy.
Life itself is a quotation.
The library will endure: it is the universe.
To love and be loved is to feel oneself in a mirror.
Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in all men is the capacity for understanding all.
The soul should remember that God is not only God but also the devil.
I cannot teach you philosophy, but I can teach you to philosophize.
The one who writes a book is not the one who knows the subject; it's the one who knows how to write.
In all fiction, when you read a good novel, you are in a dialogue with the author.
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but soldiers, even among the men of God.
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book.
The original language of Europe is translation.
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death.
I am attracted to the idea of your indistinguishability from the others.
The universe is a library; every book is a man.
Poetry is the quality that makes things happen.
I write to forget.
The future is an infinite succession of nows.
Contemporaries of Jorge Luis Borges
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).