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Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.

Jorge Luis Borges

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Jorge Luis Borges
Age: 86 †
Born: 1899
Born: August 24
Died: 1986
Died: March 26
Librarian
Literary Critic
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Buenos Ayres
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges
Chorche Louis Borches
Jorge Luis Borges Acevedo
Horhe Luis Borhes
J. L. Borges
H. Bustos Domecq
Khorkhe Luyis Borkhes
Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo
Forever
Actually
Moment
Moments
May
Consists
Long
Complicated
Men
However
Life
Single

More quotes by Jorge Luis Borges

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I have tried (I am not sure how successfully) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth -\-\ for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its complexity.
Jorge Luis Borges
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What I'm really concerned about is reaching one person. And that person may be myself for all I know.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Time broadens the scope of verses and I know of some which, like music, are everything for all men.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers.
Jorge Luis Borges
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We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men.
Jorge Luis Borges
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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
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A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource.
Jorge Luis Borges
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It means much to have loved, to have been happy, to have laid my hand on the living Garden, even for a day.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
Jorge Luis Borges
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We did meet forty years ago. At that time we were both influenced by Whitman and I said, jokingly in part, 'I don't think anything can be done in Spanish, do you?' Neruda agreed, but we decided it was too late for us to write our verse in English. We'd have to make the best of a second-rate literature.
Jorge Luis Borges
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I hardly know what I'm going to write - an article, a story, a poem in free verse - or in some regular form. I only know that when I have the first sentence. And when the first sentence makes a kind of pattern, then I find out the kind of rhythm I'm looking for.
Jorge Luis Borges
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In the course of a life devoted less to living than to reading, I have verified many times that literary intentions and theories are nothing more than stimuli and that the final work usually ignores or even contradicts them.
Jorge Luis Borges
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I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man's diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books... If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Reality is partial to symmetry and slight anachronisms
Jorge Luis Borges
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We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.
Jorge Luis Borges
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What man of us has never felt, walking through the twilight or writing down a date from his past, that he has lost something infinite?
Jorge Luis Borges
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I try to avoid purple patches, fine writing, all that kind of thing... because I think they're a mistake. And then sometimes it comes through and sometimes it doesn't, but that's not up to me. It's up to chance.
Jorge Luis Borges
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The central fact of my life has been the existence of words and the possibility of weaving those words into poetry.
Jorge Luis Borges
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Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.
Jorge Luis Borges