Borges Tango Quotes

To think is to forget. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

What you really value is what you miss, not what you have. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: "You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem." God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Novels include padding; I think padding may be an essential part of the novel, for all I know. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The exchange of thoughts is a condition necessary for all love, all friendship and all real dialogue. Two men who can speak together can enrich and broaden themselves indefinitely. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Fake it till you become it.


My first Argentine tango was with Lil' Kim, and again, I was completely learning it as I went along. Now it's become one of my favorite dances to do. Whenever people say to me, "You're such a great choreographer," or I look at my Emmy learning it in my apartment, I remind myself that I came into DWTS with no experience, no education in many of these dances, and certainly no clue how to teach anything to anybody. I simply committed to learning them and then taught them to my partners. I drew upon how I had been taught and what I thought my partners would respond to. I felt my way along, just as they did, till I became the teacher I wanted to be.
I threw myself into the effort without hesitation because I had no choice. There were only two options: I could go out there and throw my hands up and say, "Just kidding! I'm a phony," or get it done. I couldn't let myself or my partners down.
This was the stage I was given, and I always want to be the best at whatever I'm doing. I never wanted my partners to feel they couldn't rely on me. I had to go in there and make it happen. With that mentality, I found a way. ~ Derek Hough

The paradox is that by being 'in love' we are in fact falling in love with ourselves, and we have an opportunity to see ourselves in the eyes of another. It is an ecstatic place to be, the dance of romantic love, and one that cannot be denied, for it is the place where we are most likely to experience a divine tango with our soul. Love and myth go hand in hand, for myth is the most exquisite mirror of all for the reflection of self. ~ Sarah Bartlett

It is love. I will have to run or hide.

The walls of its prison rise up, as in a twisted dream. The beautiful mask has changed, but as always it is the one. Of what use are my talismans: the literary exercises, the vague erudition, the knowledge of words used by the harsh North to sing its seas and swords, the temperate friendship, the galleries of the Library, the common things, the habits, the young love of my mother, the militant shadow of my dead, the timeless night, the taste of dreams?

Being with you or being without you is the measure of my time.

Now the pitcher breaks about the spring, now the man arises to the sound of birds, now those that watch at the windows have gone dark, but the darkness has brought no peace.

It, I know, is love: the anxiety and the relief at hearing your voice, the expectation and the memory, the horror of living in succession.

It is love with its mythologies, with its tiny useless magics.

There exists a corner that I dare not cross.

Now the armies confine me, the hordes.

(This room is unreal; she has not seen it.)

The name of a woman gives me away.

A woman hurts me in all of my body. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

It is a fact, indeed, that most of
the great teachers of mankind have been not writers
but speakers. Think of Pythagoras, Christ, Socrates,
the Buddha, and so on. And since I have spoken of
Socrates, I would like to say something about Plato. I
remember Bernard Shaw said that Plato was the dramatist
who invented Socrates ~ Jorge Luis Borges

I've been successfully wearing my TWA during the fashion month in September 2015, but also I felt like my third appearance at a Victoria's Secret show would be more meaningful or impactful if I could help a few women embrace their natural beauty. ~ Maria Borges

What eternity is to time, the Aleph is to space. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence. ~ Carlos Gavito

Let no one reduce to tears or reproach
This statement of the mastery of God,
Who, with magnificent irony, gave
Me at once both books and night

Of this city of books He pronounced rulers
These lightless eyes, who can only
Peruse in libraries of dreams
The insensible paragraphs that yield

With every new dawn. Vainly does the day
Lavish on them its infinite books,
Arduous as the arduous manuscripts
Which at Alexandria did perish.

Of hunger and thirst (a Greek story tells us)
Dies a king amidst fountains and gardens;
I aimlessly weary at the confines
Of this tall and deep blind library.

Encyclopedias, atlases, the East
And the West, centuries, dynasties
Symbols, cosmos and cosmogonies
Do walls proffer, but pointlessly.

Slow in my shadow, I the hollow shade
Explore with my indecisive cane;
To think I had imagined Paradise
In the form of such a library.

Something, certainly not termed
Fate, rules on such things;
Another had received in blurry
Afternoons both books and shadow.

Wandering through these slow corridors
I often feel with a vague and sacred dread
That I am another, the dead one, who must
Have trodden the same steps at the same time.

Which of the two is now writing this poem
Of a plural I and of a single shadow?
How important ~ Jorge Luis Borges

It is venturesome to think that a coordination of words (philosophies are nothing more than that) can resemble the universe very much. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Emma dropped the paper. Her first impression was of a weak feeling in her stomach and in her knees; then of blind guilt, of unreality, of coldness, of fear; then she wished that it were already the next day. Immediately afterwards she realized that that wish was futile because the death of her father was the only thing that had happened in the world, and it would go on happening endlessly. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Short work of fiction by Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel." Imagine an infinite number of rooms, stacked atop one another, in which are stored not only all the books ever written but also all the books that ever will be, each of them in every dialect of every language known to mankind and of every language yet to be learned or formed in days to come. In addition, there is a book of the life of everyone who has ever lived or will live, and an infinite number of other volumes of all genres and purposes that could be imagined. There are books that make no sense and books that seem to make sense but perhaps do not. And the sheer quantity ensures that no one can read a sufficient percentage of it to arrive at an explanation of the library, life, or anything else. Bibi ~ Dean Koontz

I believe that the phrase 'obligatory reading' is a contradiction in terms; reading should not be obligatory. Should we ever speak of 'obligatory pleasure'? Pleasure is not obligatory, pleasure is something we seek. 'Obligatory happiness'! [...] If a book bores you, leave it; don't read it because it is famous, don't read it because it is modern, don't read a book because it is old. If a book is tedious to you, leave it, even if that book is 'Paradise Lost' - which is not tedious to me - or 'Don Quixote' - which also is not tedious to me. But if a book is tedious to you, don't read it; that book was not written for you. Reading should be a form of happiness, so I would advise all possible readers of my last will and testament - which I do not plan to write - I would advise them to read a lot, and not to get intimidated by writers' reputations, to continue to look for personal happiness, personal enjoyment. It is the only way to read. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

One of my heroes, almost necessarily from what I'm saying, of course, is Borges, who is a supreme master of doing thing
being a data bank
and the beauty of this economy is that he could have written War and Peace in three or four pages; who knows, it might have been a better book. ~ Peter Greenaway

Had I to give advice to writers (and I do not think they need it, because everyone has to find out things for himself), I would tell them simply this; I would ask them to tamper as little as they can with their own work. I do not think tinkering does any good. The moment comes when one has found out what one can do - when one has found one's natural voice, one's rhythm. Then I do not think that slight emendations should prove useful. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The fact is that every author creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The central problem of novel-writing is causality. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

I've done tangos with men who thought my ass was a squeaky toy. ~ Seanan McGuire

I still can't believe that some pseudocritics continue to accuse me of having murdered tango. They have it backward. They should look at me as the saviour of tango. I performed plastic surgery on it. ~ Astor Piazzolla

To bless thine enemy is a good way to satisfy thy vanity. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

I don't think we're capable of knowledge, but I like to keep an open mind. So if you ask me whether I believe in an afterlife or not, whether I believe in God or not, I can only answer you that all things are possible. And if all things are possible, heaven and hell and the angels are also possible. They're not to be ruled out. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

QUESTION: Are you suggesting that history is irrelevant, then, and the temporal span of humankind merely the recycling of tropes?
ANSWER: Well, I think it's two things. It's always two things, unless it's three. The first thing is moms and martyrs are the way we will think, just as when we dance we tend to tango. Jung suspected as much, you know, and every story could, I suppose, be seen as such a spyglass. Second, either there is or there isn't, point-blank, and if there is not, and something besides lead backs our philosophies, then previously Truth flashed its temper like a fictitious schoolgirl showing her panties, then went all cowboy cool in the neonew, barely speaking, keeping mum, despite the fact we's done forgot dear mammy, savoring the slow satisfying burn of a cigarette before the bonfire of a billion bodies, and still millions more wait their turn, we're better at keeping our appointments, at any rate, skinny corpses stripped of teeth and hair and skin, difference plucked like daisies, for there is no difference; in ether words, to hear the Great Apes tell it, every plague is one for the pointless and every poppy's got jack to do with Us. Hoohah! A particularly ballsy bit of business given the most recent nearing too close, we're singing our rondel with a bellyful of gravy and sourmash, we're at the highpocked end, and there's no more to come, come the dawn. Though bear in mind we've no pret-a-porter poodle sniffing around here, nossir, we're not afraid to s ~ Vanessa Place

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The huge amount of love and support I've been receiving, whether it's in the fashion industry itself or on social media, truly warms my heart and motivates me to be a voice for all the women out there. ~ Maria Borges

For me, beauty is a physical sensation, something we feel with our whole body. It is not the result of judgement. We do not arrive at it by way of rules. We either feel beauty or we don't. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

When I use a name or place, I want to leave the reader open to the waterfall of determinacy that it may provoke. And I don't know, but I must mention the name Borges. I try to mention it in every one of my works. It's a mark, a stamp, a sort of homage to Argentinidad. But it's an homage that works through pat phrases, those stock images that populate his work: the night, labyrinths, libraries. That is, I don't want simply to pay homage to Borges, but rather the contrary: to recall his commonplaces. ~ Sergio Chejfec

As a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight. ~ Jose Luis Borges

I don't think esthetic schools are important. What is important is the use that is made of them, or whatever the individual writer does. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Little did they suspect that the years would end by wearing away the disharmony.
Little did they suspect that La Mancha and Montiel and the knight's frail figure would be, for the future, no less poetic than Sinbad's haunts or Ariosto's vast geographies.
For myth is at the beginning of literature, and also at its end. ~ Jorge Luis Borges