Quotes by Octavio Paz

Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers... What we call art is a game. (Octavio Paz)

Beyond happiness or unhappiness, though it is both things, love is intensity; it does not give us eternity but life, that second in which the doors of time and space open just a crack: here is there and now is always. (Octavio Paz)

Deserve your dream. (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. (Octavio Paz)

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. (Octavio Paz)

Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual. (Octavio Paz)

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. (Octavio Paz)

Social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. (Octavio Paz)

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. (Octavio Paz)

To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears. (Octavio Paz)