“He is unpardonable, therefore, who cannot distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as ridiculous as it would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who is as hard as an oak, in fine purple, or some such meretricious garb, and put paint on his cheeks; how would such ornaments debase and degrade him!”

Source: Culture series, Excession (1996), Chapter 4 “Dependency Principle” section V (p. 129).

Source: Conversations with Judith Cladel (1939–1944), p. 407

How to Write History

One of Their Gods http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=40&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The people going by would gaze at him,
and one would ask the other if he knew him,
if he was a Greek from Syria, or a stranger.
But some who looked more carefully
would understand and step aside;
and as he disappeared under the arcades,
among the shadows and the evening lights,
going toward the quarter that lives
only at night, with orgies and debauchery,
with every kind of intoxication and desire,
they would wonder which of Them it could be,
and for what suspicious pleasure
he had come down into the streets of Selefkia
from the August Celestial Mansions.

"The Transformation of Martin Lake", epigram, p. 130
City of Saints and Madmen (2001–2004)

1942 - 1948, A Painter in a Glass House' (1948)

Paris 1923
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 312
Quotes, 1920's

27 October 1950
Source: 1946 - 1953, "Song of herself"; interviews by Olga Campos, Sept. 1950, Chapter 'My life', p. 71