Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.
About Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozanowas a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.
More quotes from Octavio Paz
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Deserve your dream.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers… What we call art is a game.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Man does not speak because he thinks; he thinks because he speaks. Or rather, speaking is no different than thinking: to speak is to think.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat
Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.
Mexican writer, poet and diplomat