Latin American Authors Quotes

“I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel...”
― Ernesto Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey

“Se dice que hay varias maneras de mentir; pero la más repugnante de todas es decir la verdad, toda la verdad, ocultando el alma de los hechos. Porque los hechos son siempre vacíos, son recipientes que tomarán la forma del sentimiento que los llene”
― Juan Carlos Onetti, El pozo

“Already the people murmur that I am your enemy
because they say that in verse I give the world your me.

They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.
Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice
because you are the dressing and the essence is me;
and the most profound abyss is spread between us.

You are the cold doll of social lies,
and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.

You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;
in all my poems I undress my heart.

You are like your world, selfish; not me
who gambles everything betting on what I am.

You are only the ponderous lady very lady;
not me; I am life, strength, woman.

You belong to your husband, your master; not me;
I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all
I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.

You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God's justice.

You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say."

Not in me, in me only my heart governs,
only my thought; who governs in me is me.
You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.
You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,
while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.

You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,
and me, a one in the numerical social divider,
we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.

When the multitudes run rioting
leaving behind ashes of burned injustices,
and with the torch of the seven virtues,
the multitudes run after the seven sins,
against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,
I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.”
― Julia de Burgos Jack Agüero Translator

“El pasado es la sustancia de que el tiempo está hecho; por ello es que éste se vuelve pasado en seguida.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph and Other Stories

“Estoy convencido de que nunca nos sucede nada que no hayamos previsto, nada para lo que no estemos preparados. Nos han tocado malos tiempos, como a todos los hombres, y hay que aprender a vivir sin ilusiones”
― Ricardo Piglia, Respiración artificial

“There is something here that frightens me. When I figure out what it is that frightens me, I shall also know what I love here. Fear has always guided me toward what I desire. And because I desire, I fear. Often it was fear that took me by the hand and led me. Fear leads me to danger. And everything I love is risky.”
― Clarice Lispector

“Neruda fell asleep right away, and woke ten minutes later, as children do, when we least expected it. He appeared in the living room refreshed, and with the monogram of the pillowcase imprinted on his cheek.
    "I dreamed about the woman who dreams," he said.
    "Matilde wanted him to tell her his dream.
    "I dreamed she was dreaming about me," he said.
    "That's right out of Borges," I said.
    He looked at me in disappointment.
    "Has he written it already?"
    "If he hasn't, he'll write it sometime," I said. "It will be one of his labyrinths.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories

“La verdad es que en México hay un país secreto, que no se anuncia, que sólo la tradición conoce y reconoce. Allí se gestan, y se continúan, la cocina, las leyendas, las memorias, los diálogos, todo lo que desaparece, evaporado, apenas lo proclama la luz neón.”
― Carlos Fuentes, Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone

“El trabajo me parece una estupidez odiosa a la que es difícil escapar”
― Juan Carlos Onetti, El pozo

“He wrote very well in those days, as it happens, much better than he does now. He had absolute convictions, and style is nothing more than the absolute conviction of possessing a style.”
― Ricardo Piglia, Los diarios de Emilio Renzi I: Años de formación

“Nunca escucharás las palabras de los otros. Tendrás que vivirlas.”
― Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz

“Ah, so that must have been her mystery: she had discovered a trail into the forest. Surely that was where she went during her absences. Returning with her eyes filled with gentleness & ignorance, eyes made whole. An ignorance so vast that inside it all the world's wisdom could be contained & lost.”
― Clarice Lispector

“Penso nos poetas mortos no potro de tortura, nos mortos de aids, de overdose, em todos os que acreditaram no paraíso latino-americano e morreram no inferno latino-americano.”
― Roberto Bolaño, Putas asesinas

“İnsanın sonunda başkalarının sandığı gibi biri olmaması olanaksız.”
― Gabriel García Márquez

“Tómate en serio, mujer. Recorre tus caminos interiores, tus sendas prohibidas, rasga tus vestiduras. abre tus heridas, exhibe tus miserias, ostenta tus arrugas, tus carnes flácidas, las redondeces conspicuas. Pierde todas las formas, inventa la tuya. La forma auténtica es tu libertad. Alcanza la rebelión de la feminista, como decimos las maestras del arte de envejecer: la edad no es un secreto vergonzoso. Piensa en la alternativa: la muerte”
― Graciela Hierro Pérezcastro