Quotes About Influence

When a writer dies, he becomes his books.

We did meet forty years ago. At that time we were both influenced by Whitman and I said, jokingly in part, 'I don't think anything can be done in Spanish, do you?' Neruda agreed, but we decided it was too late for us to write our verse in English. We'd have to make the best of a second-rate literature.

It is a fact, indeed, that most of the great teachers of mankind have been not writers but speakers. Think of Pythagoras, Christ, Socrates, the Buddha, and so on. And since I have spoken of Socrates, I would like to say something about Plato. I remember Bernard Shaw said that Plato was the dramatist who invented Socrates

Modificar el pasado no es modificar un solo hecho; es anular sus consecuencias, que tienden a ser infinitas

It is generally understood that a modern-day book may honorably be based upon an older one, especially since, as Dr. Johnson observed, no man likes owing anything to his contemporaries. The repeated but irrelevant points of congruence between Joyce's Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey continue to attract (though I shall never understand why) the dazzled admiration of critics.

The fact is that each writer creates his own precursors.

Uno no es lo que es por lo que escribe, sino por lo que ha leído.

Centuries and centuries of idealism have not failed to influence reality

The fact is that every author creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Such a pity that he [GK Chesterton] became a Catholic.

When people write in favor or against anybody, that hardly helps or hurts them...man can be done or undone by his own writing, not by what other people say of him.

The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Yo he escrito también algunos cuentos en los cuales traté ambiciosa e inultimente de ser Kafka

Each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Cuando esté muerto, copiarás a otro y luego a otro

Un gran libro como la Divina Comedia no es el aislado o azaroso capricho de un individuo; muchos hombres y muchas generaciones tendieron hacia él. Investigar sus precursores no es incurrir en una miserable tarea de carácter jurídico o policial; es indagar los movimientos, los tanteos, las aventuras, las vislumbres y las premoniciones del espíritu humano.

In the critic's vocabulary, the word precursor is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

When a country has a strong spirit, foreign and exotic influences do not debilitated that spirit, they strengthen it. - German Literature in the Age of Bach

No estoy seguro de que yo exista, en realidad. Soy todos los autores que he leído, toda la gente que he conocido, todas las mujeres que he amado. Todas las ciudades que he visitado, todos mis antepasados...».

Bandeira, sin embargo, siempre es nominalmente el jefe. Da órdenes que no se ejecutan

All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.

Century upon century of idealism could hardly have failed to influence reality.

Public discourse, the moment it becomes basically neutralized with regard to a strict standard of truth, stands by its nature ready to serve as an instrument in the hands of any ruler to pursue all kinds of power schemes.