Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
Octavio PazRead
The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of language in poetry, focusing on the words themselves rather than their meanings.
Octavio Paz suggests that the essence of poetry lies in the exploration and manipulation of language. He indicates that poets are more preoccupied with the form, sound, and rhythm of words than with the literal meanings they convey, reflecting a deeper appreciation for the artistry of language itself.
In practice
A speaker at a literary festival discussing the role of language in literature.
Solitude lies at the lowest depth of the human condition. Man is the only being who feels himself to be alone and the only one who is searching for the Other.
By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death
The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it he cannot grow or mature.
Poetry is not a genre in harmony with the modern world; its innermost nature is hostile or indifferent to the dogmas of modern times, progress and the cult of the future.
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
Man, even man debased by the neocapitalism and pseudosocialism of our time, is a marvelous being because he sometimes speaks. Language is the mark, the sign, not of his fall but of his original innocence. Through the Word we may regain the lost kingdom and recover powers we possessed in the far-distant past.
Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.
When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.
The war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters - not to talk in armies and nations and numbers - but to track it home.
I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.
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