Octavio Paz Solórzano > Quotes

“Mil cosas solicitan a la vez nuestra atención y ninguna de ellas logra retenernos; así la vida se nos vuelve arena entre los dedos y las horas humo en el cerebro.”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano

“To suppress subjectivity is to cut the heart out of art.”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano, Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature

“The handmade object does not charm us simply because of its usefulness.
It lives in complicity with our senses, and that is why it is so hard to get rid of it-it is like throwing a friend out of the house.”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano, Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature

“Great art is always an invention that begins as an imitation.”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano, Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature

“All modern painting is at once a language and a criticism of that language. A painting is a system of relations, values, and signs; each painting is an investigation and a critique of itself. Modern art is a critique of meaning and an attempt to show the reverse side of signs”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano, Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature

“A sudden presence like a burst of song,

like the wind singing in a burning building,

a glance that holds the world and all

its seas and mountains dangling in the air,

body of light filtered through an agate,

thighs of light, belly of light, the bays,

the solar rock, cloud-colored body,

color of a brisk and leaping day,

the hour sparkles and has a body,

the world is visible through your body,

transparent through your transparency,”
― Octavio Paz Solórzano, Piedra de Sol = Sunstone