“When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.”

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.

The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.

A system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to any one of such aspects.

A writer’s work is the product of laziness.

Poets, like the blind, can see in the dark.

It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.

In Spanish it is very difficult to make things flow, because words are over-long. But in English, you have light words.

Chang Tzu tells us of a persevering man who after three laborious years mastered the art of dragon-slaying. For the rest of his days, he had not a single opportunity to test his skills.

In my next life I will try to commit more errors.

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.

Then I reflect that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.

Reality favors symmetry.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.

I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me.

Creativity is suspended between memory and forgetting.

There’s only one great evil in the world today. Despair.

In one consort there sat cruel revenge and rancorous despite, disloyal treason and heart-burning hate.

Sooner or later; one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.

For whatsoever from one place doth fall, Is with the tide unto an other brought: For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.

I ask not for any crown But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within.

Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.