Richard Burgin, Conversation with Jorge Luis Borges, pages 92-93.
Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges (1968)
Jorge Luis Borges:
213
quotes
11
likes
Jorge Luis Borges Quotes
“My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.”
Dr. Brodie's Report [El informe de Brodie] (1970)
Un hombre se propone la tarea de dibujar el mundo. A lo largo de los años puebla un espacio con imágenes de provincias, de reinos, de montañas, de bahías, de naves, de islas, de peces, de habitaciones, de instrumentos, de astros, de caballos y de personas. Poco antes de morir, descubre que ese paciente laberinto de líneas traza la imagen de su cara.
Epilogue
Variant translation: A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Through the years he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his face.
Dreamtigers (1960)
"To the Reader" ["A quien leyere"], preface to Fervor of Buenos Aires [Fervor de Buenos Aires] (1923)
“Doubt is one of the names of intelligence.”
La duda es uno de los nombres de la inteligencia.
As quoted in Diccionario privado de Jorge Luis Borges (1979) edited by Blas Matamoro
Variant translation: I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left... Whosoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished, should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
“My undertaking is not difficult, essentially… I should only have to be immortal to carry it out.”
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" ["Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote"]
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
Comparing film and stage theatre in "The Divine Comedy" (1977)
“Art always opts for the individual, the concrete; art is not Platonic.”
"Gauchesque Poetry" ["La poesía gauchesca"]
Discussion (1932)
"The Immortal", § IV, in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Variant: To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
“In life, he suffered from a sense of unreality, as do many Englishmen.”
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
Variant: In his lifetime, he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen; once dead, he is not even the ghost he was then.
"The Library of Babel" ["La Biblioteca de Babel"] (1941) First lines
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
Variant: There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.
Hay un concepto que es el corruptor y el desatinador de los otros. No hablo del mal cuyo limitado imperio es la ética; hablo del infinito.
"Avatars of the Tortoise"
Variant translations:
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.
There is a concept that is the corruptor and dazzler of others. I'm not talking about the evil whose limited empire is the ethic; I'm talking about infinity.
There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.
Discussion (1932)
El hecho ocurrió en el mes de febrero de 1969, al norte de Boston, en Cambridge. No lo escribí inmediatamente porque mi primer propósito fue olvidarlo, para no perder la razón.
"The Other" ["El Otro"], The Book of Sand (1975)
“Reading … is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual.”
Universal History of Infamy [Historia universal de la infamia] (1935) Preface
“In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word?”
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
"The South". Cf. "The Man on the Threshold", in The Aleph (1949)
tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Ficciones (1944)
Variant: On the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water or a saying is polished by generations of mankind.
“I have committed the worst sin that can be committed. I have not been happy.”
He cometido el peor pecado que uno puede cometer. No he sido feliz.
"El Remordimiento" [Remorse] in La moneda de hierro [The Iron Coin], as quoted in Borges at Eighty : Conversations (1982) edited by Willis Barnstone, also in Hispanic Literature Criticism : Allende to Jiménez (1994), p. 298
"The Nightingale of Keats"
Other Inquisitions (1952)
"Dead Men’s Dialogue"
Dreamtigers (1960)
“The central problem of novel-writing is causality.”
"Narrative Art and Magic" ["El arte narrativo y la magia"]
Discussion (1932)
"The Library of Babel" (1941); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
“The vast ineptitude of his pretense would be a convincing proof that this was no fraud.”
"The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Variant translation: It seemed incredible that this day, a day without warnings or omens, might be that of my implacable death.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
“Myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end.”
"Parable of Cervantes and Don Quixote" (January 1955)
Tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Dreamtigers (1960)
Variant: In the beginning of literature there is myth, as there is also in the end of it.
"Nathaniel Hawthorne"
Other Inquisitions (1952)
Preface; Variant translations:
It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books — setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them... A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books.
The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary . . . More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books.
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)
"The Duel", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
"Guayaquil", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Other Inquisitions (1952), The Modesty of History
“A labyrinth of symbols… An invisible labyrinth of time.”
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
“I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.”
The Garden of Forking Paths (1942), The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Wall and the Books" ["La muralla y los libros"] (1950)
Variant translation: Music, feelings of happiness, mythology, faces worn by time, certain twilights and certain places, want to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have missed, or they are about to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation that is not produced is, perhaps, the esthetic event.
Other Inquisitions (1952)
“The future is inevitable and precise, but it may not occur. God lurks in the gaps.”
"Creation and P.H. Gosse" ["La creacin y P.H. Gosse"]
Other Inquisitions (1952)
“Life and death have been lacking in my life.”
Prologue
Discussion (1932)
And yet, and yet … Negar la sucesión temporal, negar el yo, negar el universo astronómico, son desesperaciones aparentes y consuelos secretos. Nuestro destino no es espantoso por irreal: es espantoso porque es irreversible y de hierro. El tiempo es la sustancia de que estoy hecho. El tiempo es un río que me arrebata, pero yo soy el río; es un tigre que me destroza, pero yo soy el tigre; es un fuego que me consume, pero yo soy el fuego. El mundo desgraciadamente es real; yo, desgraciadamente, soy Borges.
"A New Refutation of Time" (1946) [" Nueva refutación del tiempo http://www.monografias.com/trabajos11/filoylit/filoylit.shtml"]
Variant translations:
And yet, and yet... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are obvious acts of desperation and secret consolation. Our fate (unlike the hell of Swedenborg or the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad. Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Other Inquisitions (1952)
"Poem of the Gifts" ["Poema de los Dones"]
Dreamtigers (1960)
"The Library of Babel" ["La Biblioteca de Babel"] (1941)
With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events.
"Gauchesque Poetry"
Discussion (1932)
