Poems of the Night Quotes

“What is longevity? It is the horror of existing in a human body whose faculties are in decline. It is insomnia measured by decades and not by metal hands. It is carrying the weight of seas and pyramids, of ancient libraries and dynasties, of the dawns that Adam saw. It is being well aware that I am bound to my flesh, to a voice I detest, to my name, to routinely remembering, to Castilian, over which I have no control, to feeling nostalgic for the Latin I do not know. It is trying to sink into death and being unable to sink into death. It is being and continuing to be.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Poems of the Night

“I'm alone and nobody is in the mirror”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Poems of the Night

“All the blessed night I have been walking
and its restlessness has left me
on this street, which could be any street

. . .

I think, and the confession of my poverty
is given voice before these houses:

I have seen nothing of mountain ranges, rivers, or the sea,
but the light of Buenos Aires made itself my friend
and I shape the lines of my life and my death with that light of the street.
Big long-suffering street,
you are the only music my life has understood”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Poems of the Night