I know of a wild region whose librarians repudiate the vain superstitious custom of seeking any sense in books and compare it to looking for meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's hands . . . They admit that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but they maintain that this application is accidental and that books in themselves mean nothing. This opinion - we shall see - is not altogether false.
Jorge Luis BorgesI do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as โThe Massesโ. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.
Jorge Luis BorgesHeaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
Jorge Luis BorgesHe thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.
Jorge Luis BorgesA book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the wordsโor rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbolsโspring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word.
Jorge Luis BorgesNot a single star will be left in the night. The night will not be left. I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe. I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions, the continents and faces. I shall erase the accumulated past. I shall make dust of history, dust of dust. Now I am looking on the final sunset. I am hearing the last bird. I bequeath nothingness to no one.
Jorge Luis Borges