The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy.
All theories are legitimate, no matter. What matters is what you do with them.
The European and the North American consider that a book that has been awarded any kind of prize must be good; the Argentine allows for the possibility that the book might not be bad, despite the prize.
You may win your heart’s desire, but in the end you’re cheated of it by death.
Israelites, Christians and Muslims profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment.
Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.
Art is endless like a river flowing, passing, yet remaining...
When you reach my age, you realize you couldn’t have done things very much better or much worse than you did them in the first place.
Censorship is the mother of metaphor.
In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense.
My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.
The future is as irrevocable as an inflexible yesterday.
To arrange a library is to practice in a quiet and modest way the art of criticism.
As a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight.
I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.
Whoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
The steps a man takes from the day of his birth until that of his death trace in time an inconcievable figure. The Divine Mind intuitively grasps that form immediately, as men do a triangle.
We have shared out, like thieves, the amazing treasures of days and nights.
All literature, is, finally autobiographical.
Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.