The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory
Jorge Luis Borges
Top 10 Best Quotes
“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.”
“The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with.”
“A miracle has the right to impose conditions.”
“To see a thing one has to comprehend it. An armchair presupposes the human body, its joints and limbs; a pair of scissors, the act of cutting. What can be said of a lamp or a car? The savage cannot comprehend the missionary’s Bible; the passenger does not see the same rigging as the sailors. If we really saw the world, maybe we would understand it.”
“There is nothing but quotations left for us. Our language is a system of quotations.”
“I clarified that I myself was Colombian. "What is 'being Colombian'?" "I'm not sure," I replied. "It's an act of faith." "Like being Norwegian," she said, nodding. I can recall nothing further of what was said that night.”
“Halfway through his reclusion, Arredondo experienced more than once that almost timeless time. In the first of the house’s three patios there was cistern with a frog in it. It never occurred to Arredondo to think that the frog’s time, which borders on eternity, was what he himself sought.”
“Words are symbols that assume a shared memory. The memory I now want to set down is mine alone; all those who share it have died. The mystics invoke a rose, a kiss, a bird that is all birds, a sun that is all the stars and the sun, a jug of wine, a garden, or the sexual act. Of these metaphors, none will serve me for that long, joyous night, which left us, tired out and happy, at the borders of dawn.”
“As fate would have it, we talked about literature; I fear I said no more than the things I usually say to journalists. My alter ego believed in the invention, or discovery, of new metaphors; I, in those metaphors that correspond to intimate and obvious affinities and that our imagination has already accepted. Old age and sunset, dreams and life, the flow of time and water. …”
“The years pass and I’ve told this story so many times I no longer know whether I remember it as it was or whether it’s only my words I’m remembering.”
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Book Keywords:
language, quotation, there-are-more-things, metaphor, memory, faith, nationality, ulrikke
