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The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

Jorge Luis Borges

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Confusion Corruption Infinite Limitation
Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Ideas Novel Plane Reality
I think most people are more important than their opinions.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Important Opinion People Thinking
In general, every country has the language it deserves.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Country Deserve Language
Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Literature Patience Power Time
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Action Deserve Heaven Hell Man Myself
A writer’s work is the product of laziness.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Lazy Poet Work Writing
Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Books Existence Fools Ideas Summary Writing
We accept reality so readily – perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Acceptance Reality Thinking
I think that the reader should enrich what he is reading. He should misunderstand the text; he should change it into something else.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Himself Misunderstanding Reading Thinking
I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Myself Sleep
Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read books for the aesthetic emotions they offer me, and I ignore the commentaries and criticism.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Aesthetic Criticism Personal Reading
Only in the present do things happen.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Inspirational Moments Present
If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father’s library.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Father Library Life Name
To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we’ll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Immortal Invention Known Man Play Separate Way
When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Death Writing

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

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The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

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