292 Quotes by Octavio Paz

To be a great painter means to be a great poet: someone who transcends the limits of his language.

Tradition is no longer a continuity but a series of sharp breaks. The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt.

All poems say the same thing, and each poem is unique. Each part reproduces the others, and each part is different.

The purpose of poetry is to restore to mankind the possibility to wonder.

Any reflection about poetry should begin, or end, with this question: who and how many read poetry books?

Fixity is always momentary. But how can it always be so? If it were, it would not be momentary - or would not be fixity.

Mineral cactai, quicksilver lizards in the adobe walls, the bird that punctures space, thirst, tedium, clouds of dust, impalpable epiphanies of wind. The pines taught me to talk to myself. In that garden I learnedto send myself off. Later there were no gardens.

Futurists wanted to suggest movement by means of a dynamic painting; Duchamp applies the notion of delay - or, rather, or analysis - to movement.

In antiquity, a woman might be an object of worship or desire, but never of love.