Quotes from Octavio Paz

En alguna parte hay un lugar vacío y ese vacío se llenará de mí y yo me asentaré en ese hueco que insesiblemente rebosará de mí, pleno de mí hasta volverse fuente o surtidor. Y mi vacío, el vacío de mí que soy ahora, se llenará de sí, pleno de ser hasta los bordes.

The brains are stained with ink The doctors dispute in a den of thieves The businessmen fast hands slow thoughts officiate in the graveyard The dialecticians exalt the subtlety of the rope

The associations of signs, whether it be strong or weak, is what distinguishes us humans from the other animals. Rather, it is what makes us complex, problematical, and unpredictable beings.

Para que pueda ser he de ser otro, salir de mí, buscarme entre los otros, los otros que no son si yo no existo, los otros que me dan plena existencia.

In my window night invents another night

La poesía debe ser un poco seca para que arda bien, y de este modo iluminarnos y calentarnos.

Poetry, like history, is made; poetry, like truth, is seen.

Los ojos del entendimiento comulgan con la hermosura y el hombre procrea no imágenes ni simulacros de belleza si no realidades hermosas.

I am the shadow my words cast

Look at the power of the world, look at the power of the dust, look at the water.

Good, we wanted good: to set the world right. We didn't lack integrity: we lacked humility. What we wanted was not innocently wanted. Precepts and concepts, the arrogance of theologians, to beat with a cross, to institute with blood, to build the house with bricks of crime, to declare obligatory communion. Some became secretaries to the secretary to the General Secretary of the Inferno.

There was only one huge world with no back to it A world like a sun One day it broke into tiny pieces They were the words of the language we now speak Pieces that will never come together Broken mirrors where the world sees itself shatterered

El mexicano puede doblarse, humillarse, agacharse, pero no rajarse

In my house there were more dead than living. My mother, a thousand-year-old girl, mother of the world, my orphan, self-sacrificing, ferocious, stubborn, provident, titmouse, bitch, ant, wild boar, love letter with spelling mistakes; my mother: bread I'd slice with her own knife each day.

Sound, the blindman's cane of sense: I write death and for a moment I live within it. I inhabit its sound: a pneumatic cube of glass, vibrating on this page, vanishing among its echoes.

Der Triumph der Prinzipien über Instinkte

Die Nähe des Todes schafft eine Atmosphäre die das Außergewöhnliche begünstigt (und über die conditio humana hinauswachsen lässt)

There are moments that explode and become stars from "Seeds for a psalm

Pero su recuerdo no me abandona. Quien ha visto la Esperanza, no la olvida. La busca bajo todos los cielos y entre todos los hombres. Y sueña que un día va a encontrarla de nuevo, no sabe dónde, acaso entre los suyos. En cada hombre late la posibilidad de ser o, más exactamente, de volver a ser , otro hombre.

Self discovery is above all the realization that we are alone

Armed with the arms of summer you come into my room come into my mind and untie the river of language look at yourself in these hurried words Bit by bit the day burns out over the erasing landscape your shadow is a land of birds the sun scatters with a wave from "THE ARMS OF SUMMER

El amor es una elevación, un cambio de estado; los amantes transcienden, por un momento al menos, su condición temporal y, literalmente, se transportan a otro mundo.

La primera nota caraterítica del amor es la exlusividad... El amor es individual o más exactamente, interpersonal: queremos únicamente a una persona y le pedimos a esa persona que nos quiera con el mismo afecto exclusivo.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has 'invented' himself by saying 'no' to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.