The wounds were burning like suns at five in the afternoon, and the crowd broke the windows At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
With their souls of patent leather, they come down the road. Hunched and nocturnal, where they breathe they impose, silence of dark rubber, and fear of fine sand.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the haunting and mysterious nature of life, portraying beings that evoke both fear and awe.
In this quote, Federico Garcia Lorca evokes a vivid and surreal imagery of figures moving through the darkness. Their 'souls of patent leather' suggest a shiny, artificial quality, while the juxtaposition of 'silence of dark rubber' and 'fear of fine sand' conveys a sense of foreboding and the weight of existence. Lorca's use of nocturnal imagery emphasizes the unknown and the hidden aspects of life, prompting the reader to reflect on the darker elements of the human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the complexities of human nature.
More from Federico Garcia Lorca
All quotes βThere is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.
The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink - and in drinking understand themselves.
Death laid its eggs in the wound
The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.
Similar quotes
The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.
I have always kept one end in view, namely ... to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honour of God.
Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all.
It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live.
I paint mostly from real life. It has to start with that. Real people, real street scenes, behind the curtain scenes, live models, paintings, photographs, staged setups, architecture, grids, graphic design. Whatever it takes to make it work.
Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.