Passions and Impressions Quotes

“Then I speak to her in a language she has never heard, I speak to her in Spanish, in the tongue of the long, crepuscular verses of Díaz Casanueva; in that language in which Joaquín Edwards preaches nationalism. My discourse is profound; I speak with eloquence and seduction; my words, more than from me, issue from the warm nights, from the many solitary nights on the Red Sea, and when the tiny dancer puts her arm around my neck, I understand that she understands. Magnificent language!”
― Pablo Neruda, Passions and Impressions

“Remembering her, it is as if my heart were buried in the rain.
Again I think it’s she, but why would she be coming now? Oh, what
sad days!
[…] Your eyes : two sleepy cups darkened by purple berries from
the forest undergrowth. What a leaf, a leaf from a white vine,
fragrant and heavy, I could have brought you from the forest. Every-
thing flees from this solitude enforced by rain and contemplation.”
― Pablo Neruda, Passions and Impressions

“Even in memory, I am terrified by those solitudes! When foul weather is unleashed in that part of the world, the rain seems kin to the devil; the waters of the river and the sea and sky couple, bellowing. A forsaken land where even letters arrive wilted, withered by distances, where hearts petrify and are altered.


from “A Dead Man’s Name”
― Pablo Neruda, Passions and Impressions