Octavio Paz Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

View all Octavio Paz Quotes
We are condemned to kill time:
Thus we die
bit by bit

Octavio Paz
Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.

Octavio Paz
Life is not historical, but something more like nature.

Octavio Paz
Self-discovery is above all the realization that we are alone.

Octavio Paz
The world changes if two, dizzy and entwined, fall on the grass

Octavio Paz
Art is what remains of religion: the dance above the yawning abyss.

Octavio Paz
What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

Octavio Paz
Each time we try to express ourselves we have to break with ourselves.

Octavio Paz
The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature.

Octavio Paz
Social criticism begins with grammar and the reestablishing of meanings.

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
My body, plowed by your body, will turn into a field where one is sown and a hundred reaped.

Octavio Paz
Would it not be true to say that North Americans prefer to use reality rather than to know it?

Octavio Paz
Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don't move; today is today, always is today.

Octavio Paz
Mexicans are descended from the Aztecs, Peruvians from the Incas and Argentinians from the ships.

Octavio Paz
And the world is changed if two people shaken by dizziness and enlaced are fallen among the grass.

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

Octavio Paz
Touched by poetry, language is more fully language and at the same time is no longer language: it is a poem.

Octavio Paz
There can be a "boom" in petroleum or wheat, but there can't be a boom in the novel and less still in poetry.

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
Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.

Octavio Paz
I fought against Nazi totalitarianism and the Soviet dictatorship. I don't regret either struggle in the slightest

Octavio Paz
And to fill all these white pages that are left for me with the same monotonous question: at what hour do the hours end?

Octavio Paz
If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement.

Octavio Paz
My steps along this street Resound
in another street In which
I hear my steps Passing along this street
In which
Only the mist is real.

Octavio Paz