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The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Jorge Luis Borges

We have a very precise image – an image at times shameless – of what we have lost, but we are ignorant of what may follow or replace it.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Image Lost Replacement Shame Time
I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Man Myself See Soldier
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
Time is the tiger that devours me, but I am that tiger.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

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

Difficult Light Spanish Word Yourself
I suppose identity depends on memory. And if my memory is blotted out, then I wonder if I exist – I mean, if I am the same person. Of course, I don’t have to solve that problem. It’s up to God, if any.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Existence Identity Memories Problem Solution
So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Decoration Flower Garden Plant Self Love Soul Yourself
The man who acquires an encyclopedia does not thereby acquire every line, every paragraph, every page, and every illustration; he acquires the possibility of becoming familiar with one and another of those things.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Himself Knowledge Man Possibility
Each thing implies the universe.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

One Liner Universe
When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Book Death Writing
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Build Philosophy Stone
Every man should be capable of all ideas.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Capable Ideas Man
Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

God Myself Possible Strange Tolerance World
No one is a poet from eight to twelve and from two to six. Whoever is a poet is one always, and continually assaulted by poetry.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Age Oneself Poet Poetry
I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Ease Friendship Minority Myself Time Writing
When I write, I do it urged by an intimate necessity. I don’t have in mind an exclusive public, or a public of multitudes, I don’t think in either thing. I think about expressing what I want to say. I try to do it in the simplest way possible.
JORGE LUIS BORGES

Expression Intimate Myself Necessary Possible Simplicity Writing

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

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The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library. Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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