A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.
Jorge Luis BorgesThe task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in manโs memory. That is our duty. If we donโt fulfill it, we feel unhappy.
Jorge Luis BorgesI don't think I can really believe in doomsday; I could hardly believe in rewards and punishments, in heaven or hell. As I wrote down in one of my sonnets - I seem to be always plagiarizing, imitating myself or somebody else for that matter - I think I am quite unworthy of heaven or of hell, and even of immortality.
Jorge Luis BorgesI ask of any God, of any gods, that if they give immortality, I hope to be granted oblivion also.
Jorge Luis BorgesSometimes, looking at the many books I have at home, I feel I shall die before I come to the end of them, yet I cannot resist the temptation of buying new books. Whenever I walk into a bookstore and find a book on one of my hobbies โ for example, Old English or Old Norse poetry โ I say to myself, โWhat a pity I canโt buy that book, for I already have a copy at home.
Jorge Luis Borges