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)
Every book is a mirror, reflecting our own souls.
To read is to live a thousand lives.
I am a shadow, and my words are my light.
Love is a dream, and I am a dreamer.
I am a traveler, and my destination is the unknown.
The universe is a book, and we are its readers.
I am a labyrinth, and my thoughts are its paths.
Every story is a journey, and every reader a fellow traveler.
To write is to create a universe, and to read is to explore it.
I am a whisper in the wind, a fleeting thought in the mind of God.
Love is a poem, and I am its unfortunate author.
I am a mirror, reflecting the world around me.
The world is a dream, and I am its dreamer.
I am a question, and my life is the answer.
Every ending is a new beginning, and every death a rebirth.
To be human is to be a story, constantly unfolding.
Reality is not always probable, or necessary.
To be a writer is to be a reader. It is to be a perpetual reader.
I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited.
The future is inevitable. It is not a question of whether it will happen, but how.
Contemporaries of Jorge Luis Borges
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).