Octavio Paz Quotes, Piedra de Sol ...

http://www.allgreatquotes.com/octavio_paz_quotes2.shtml a crystal willow, a poplar of water, a tall fountain the wind arches over, a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still, a course of a river that turns, moves on, doubles back, and comes full circle, forever arriving Octavio Paz Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger

I travel your body, like the world, your belly is a plaza full of sun, your breasts two churches where blood performs its own, parallel rites, my glances cover you like ivy, you are a city the sea assaults, a stretch of ramparts split by the light in two halves the color of peaches, a domain of salt, rocks and birds, under the rule of oblivious noon Octavio Paz Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger

I travel your length, like a river, I travel your body, like a forest, like a mountain path that ends at a cliff I travel along the edge of your thoughts, and my shadow falls from your white forehead, my shadow shatters, and I gather the pieces and go with no body, groping my way Octavio Paz Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger

The two took off their clothes and made love to protect our ration of paradise and time, to touch our roots, to rescue ourselves, to rescue the inheritance stolen from us by the thieves of life centuries ago, the two took off their clothes and kissed because two bodies, naked and entwined, leap over time, they are invulnerable, nothing can touch them, they return to the source, there is no you, no I, no tomorrow, no yesterday, no names, the truth of two in a single body, a single soul, oh total being . . . Octavio Paz Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger

to love is to battle, if two kiss the world changes, desires take flesh thoughts take flesh, wings sprout on the backs of the slave, the world is real and tangible, wine is wine, bread regains its savor, water is water, to love is to battle, to open doors, to cease to be a ghost with a number forever in chains, forever condemned by a faceless master; the world changes if two look at each other and see Octavio Paz Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger

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

Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason. Octavio Paz The Labyrinth of Solitude

Art is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers. . . . What we call art is a game. 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 one of the answers humankind invented to stare death in the face: time ceases to be a measure, and we can briefly know paradise. 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 Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past. 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 Surrealism has been the drunken flame that guides the steps of the sleepwalker who tiptoes along the edge of the shadow that the blade of the guillotine casts on the neck of the condemned. 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 Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. Octavio Paz For he is superstitious grown of late, Quite from the main opinion he held once Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies. Octavio Paz Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society. Octavio Paz