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)
I have committed the worst of sins, which a man can commit. I have not been happy.
There is no other way to be a writer than to be a reader.
Literature is not a game, it is a passion.
To read is to dream with open eyes.
I have always been more interested in books than in people.
I am a blind man who dreams of seeing.
The greatest art is to be a good reader.
Poetry is not a genre, it is a way of seeing the world.
I am an old man who has lived many lives.
I have always been a shy man.
I am a man who loves words.
The act of reading is a dialogue.
I am a man who has always been fascinated by the unknown.
The universe is a book written in the language of mathematics.
I am a man who has always been a dreamer.
The world is a dream, and we are all dreaming it.
I am a man who has always been a wanderer.
The world is a story, and we are all characters in it.
I am a man who has always been a seeker.
The world is a poem, and we are all lines in it.
Contemporaries of Jorge Luis Borges
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).