octavio paz

“ are they nothing at all, the cries of men? ”

“ Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. ”

“ ... the solitude of the Mexican, under the great stone night of the high plateau that is still inhabited by insatiable gods, is very different from that of the North American... ”

“ The Mexican succumbs very easily to sentimental effusions, and therefore he shuns them. ”

“ The Mexican, whether young or old, criollo or mestizo, general or laborer or lawyer, seems to me to be a person who shuts himself away to protect himself. ”

“ Romanticism - which by definition is expansive and open, revealed itself as early as the seventeenth century, that is, before we were even aware of ourselves as a nation. ”

“ There can be no society without poetry, but society can never be realized as poetry, it is never poetic. Sometimes the two terms seek to break apart. They cannot. ”

“ Social criticism begins with grammar and the reestablishing of meanings. ”

“ The speech of our people reflects the extent to which we protect ourselves from the outside world: the ideal of manliness is never to 'crack', never to back down. ”

“ The past reappears because it is a hidden present. ”