Quotes from Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

I have said that you sang in the wind like the pines and like the masts. Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage. You gather things to you like an old road. You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices. I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated that had been sleeping in your soul.

Love, love, until the night collapses

De tus caderas a tus pies quiero hacer un largo viaje.

En ese territorio, de tus pies a tu frente, andando, andando, andando, me pasaré la vida.

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being

My love, suddenly your hip is the curve of the wineglass filled to the brim, your breast is the cluster, your hair the light of alcohol, your nipples, the grapes your navel pure seal stamped on your barrel of a belly, and your love the cascade of unquenchable wine, the brightness that falls on my senses, the earthen splendor of life.

Ours is a lank country and on the naked edge of her knife our frail flag burns.

I searched, but no one else had your rhythms, your light, the shady day you brought from the forest; Nobody had your tiny ears.

Las olas dicen a la costa firme: Todo sera cumplido.

Dónde está el niño que yo fui, Sigue adentro de mí o se fue? Sabe que no lo quise nunca Y que tampoco me quería? Por qué anduvimos tanto tiempo Creciendo para separarnos? Por qué no morimos los dos Cuándo mi infancia se murió? Y si el alma se me cayó Por qué me sigue el esqueleto?

You pervade everything, you, pervade everything.

Let us look for secret things somewhere in the world, on the blue shore of silence or where the storm has passed, rampaging like a train...

las personas más razonables les costaría mucho ser poetas, quizás a los poetas les cuesta mucho ser razonables.

Hay algo más triste en el mundo que un tren inmóvil en la lluvia?

Why search in vain in every door in which we will not exist because we have not arrived yet? That is how I found out that I was exactly like you and like everybody.

I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile, is enough. And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if I could not walk except with you, as if I could not sing except when you sing.

The sun is touching every door and making wonder of the wheat. The first wine is pink in colour, is sweet with the sweetness of a child, the second wine is able-bodied, strong like the voice of a sailor, the third wine is a topaz, is a poppy and a fire in one. My house has both the sea and the earth, my woman has great eyes the colour of wild hazelnut, when night comes down, the sea puts on a dress of white and green...

How long does a man live, after all? Does he live a thousand days, or one only? A week, or several centuries? How long does a man spend dying? What does it mean to say 'for ever'? Lost in these preoccupation I set myself to clear things up. .... In my own country the undertakers answered me, between drinks: 'Get yourself a good woman and give up this nonsense.' And How Long - Pablo Neruda

Dans ma patrie, on emprisonne les mineurs et le soldat commande au juge. Mais j'aime, moi, jusqu'aux racines de mon petit pays si froid. Si je devais mourir cent fois, c'est là que je voudrais mourir et si je devais naître cent fois c'est là aussi que je veux naître.

Did the loneliness die that night? Or was I born then, of my solitude?

I know, I know, but here beside the water while the locusts chitter and sparkle, although they are waiting, I want to wait for myself. I too want to watch myself. I want to discover at last my own feelings. And when I reach the place where I am waiting, I expect to fall asleep, dying of laughter.