Pablo Neruda citations

Page 2

“Un seul mot, usé, mais qui brille comme une vieille pièce de monnaie: merci!”

“Je continue à travailler avec les matériaux dont je dispose et qui me constituent. Je suis un omnivore avide de sentiments, d'êtres vivants, de livres, d'évènements et de batailles. Je mangerais toute la terre. Je boirais la mer entière.

J'avoue que j'ai vécu”

“Dans ma patrie,
on emprisonne les mineurs
et le soldat commande au juge.
Mais j'aime, moi, jusqu'aux racines
de mon petit pays si froid.
Si je devais mourir cent fois,
c'est là que je voudrais mourir
et si je devais naître cent fois
c'est là aussi que je veux naître.”

“La timidité est une condition étrange du coeur, une catégorie, une dimension qui débouche sur la solitude. C'est aussi une souffrance dont on ne peut se défaire, comme si l'on avait deux épidermes et que la deuxième peau intérieure s'irritait et se contractait devant la vie.

J'avoue que j'ai vécu”

“Le raffinement culinaire était l'orgueil suprême des trois soeurs; la table représentait pour elles la conservation d'un héritage sacré, d'une culture aux terres de laquelle elles ne reviendraient plus, écartées de leur patrie par le temps et par des mers immenses.

J'avoue que j'ai vécu”

“La poésie est toujours un acte de paix. Le poète naît de la paix comme le pain naît de la farine.

J'avoue que j'ai vécu”

“In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?”

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

“Do tears not yet spilled wait in small lakes?”

“My soul is an empty carousel at sunset.”

“I have slept with you all night long while the dark earth spins with the living and the dead, and on waking suddenly in the midst of the shadow my arm encircled your waist. Neither night nor sleep could separate us.”

“Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.”

“By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
together in their sleep will defeat the darkness”

“In the eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins.”

“About me, nothing worse they will tell you, my love, than what I told you”

“How much does a man live, after all?/ Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or for several centuries?/ How long does a man spend dying?/ What does it mean to say 'for ever'?”

“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.”

“sometimes i get up at dawn, and even my soul is wet.”

“With which stars do they go on speaking, the rivers that never reach the sea?”

“We must dream our way.”

“I am everybody and every time,
I always call myself by your name.”

“Like a jar you housed the infinite tenderness, and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.”

“He who has nothing—it has been said many times—has nothing to lose but his chains.”

“I need the sea because it teaches me”

“A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.”

“Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.”

“Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?”

“I will bring you flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you
what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.”

“Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.”

“and everything burned in blue, everything a star”

“A book,
a book full
of human touches,
of shirts,
a book
without loneliness, with men
and tools,
a book
is victory.”

“I move in the university of the waves.”

“I remembered you with my soul clenched”

“Si todos los rios son dulces
de donde saca sal el mar?

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?”