#2,898

Words are born among the people, flourish among writers, and die in the mouth of the middle class.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 463

#2,895

It is fine to demand that the imbecile respect arts, letters, philosophy, the sciences, but let him respect them in silence.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 463

#2,894

Whereas contemporaries read only the optimist with enthusiasm, posterity rereads the pessimist with admiration.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 463

#2,868

The glory of the truly great writers is a glory artificially imposed on the public, an academic and subsidized glory.
Authentic, popular, spontaneous glory crowns none but mediocre men.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 459

#2,834

In unremarkable texts we soon trip on phrases that penetrate into us, as if a sword has been thrust into us up to the hilt.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 454

#2,814

The pleasure of guessing the ingenious meaning of a metaphor tries to replace, in modern “poetry,” the mysterious joy of song.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 451

#2,771

Only he who suggests more than what he expresses can be reread.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 445

#2,736

The perfect transparency of a text is, with nothing more, a sufficient delight.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 440

#2,711

No writer has ever been born who did not write too much.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 436

#2,690

The basic problems of an age have never been the theme of its great literary works.
Only ephemeral literature is an “expression of society.”

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 433

#2,686

Love uses the vocabulary of sex to write a text unintelligible to sex alone.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 433

#2,683

Interesting autobiographies would be plentiful if writing the truth were not an aesthetic problem.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 432

#2,645

The book that does not scandalize the expert a little has no reason to exist.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 427

#2,640

Classical Castilian means, with a few exceptions, an unreadable book.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 426

#2,630

Contemporary man admires only hysterical texts.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 425

#2,620

A good book from yesterday does not seem bad except to the ignoramus; on the other hand, a mediocre book from today can seem good even to a cultivated man.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 423

#2,601

The history of literary genres admits of sociological explanations.
The history of works of literature does not.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 420

#2,541

Arts and letters soon become sterile where the practice of them gives one wealth and the admiration of them prestige.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 408

#2,417

Countries with an impoverished literature have an insipid history.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,397

The modern poet is a peasant who despondently sows a plot of eroded soil.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387