The Aleph Quotes

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

As Borges himself showed us in so many stories - "The Aleph", "The Garden of Forking Paths", "The Gift", "Blue Tigers", "Shakespeare's Memory" - a blessing is always a mixed blessing.
As Borges noted sadly, he inherited a library, and blindness; we who study Borges inherit great sight, yet the rest of the library somehow fades.

(pg 303, "What I Lost When I Translated Jorge Luis Borges") ~ Andrew Hurley

When the soul is consciously awakened can it comprehend the acquiescence of Muhammad, the unshakable foundation of Abraham and the very nature of Christ, equating the Aleph in the sealed Universe - As The Soul Speaks ~ AainaA-Ridtz

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

Is it possible to fix love and make it stand still in time? Well, we can try, but that would turn our lives into a hell. I haven't been married for more than 20 years to the same person, because neither she nor I have remained the same. That's why our relationship is more alive than ever. I don't expect her to behave as she did when we first met. Nor does she want me to be the person I was when I found her. Love is beyond time, or, rather, love is both time and space, but all focused on one single constantly evolving point
the Aleph. ~ Paulo Coelho

I am told that César Aira writes two books a year, at least, some of which are published by a little Argentinean company named Beatriz Viterbo, after the character in Borges's story "The Aleph." The books of his that I have been able to find were published by Mondadori and and Tusquets Argentina. It's frustrating, because once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop. His novels seem to put the theories of Gombrowicz into practice, except, and the difference is fundamental, that Gombrowicz was the abbot of a luxurious imaginary monastery, while Aira is a nun or novice among the Discalced Carmelites of the Word. Sometimes he is reminiscent of Roussel (Roussel on his knees in a bath red with blood), but the only living writer to whom he can be compared is Barcelona's Enrique Vila-Matas.

Aira is an eccentric, but he is also one of the three or four best writers working in Spanish today. ~ Roberto Bolano

This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text. Is the aleph, that place in Borges from which the entire world is visible simultaneously, anything other than an alphabet? ~ Georges Perec

Every transfinite consistent multiplicity, that is, every transfinite set, must have a definite aleph as its cardinal number. ~ Georg Cantor

It is possible to avoid pain? Yes, but you'll never learn anything. Is it possible to know something without ever having experiencing it? Yes, but it will never truly be part of you. ~ Paulo Coelho

Wait", I say. "That's-you-what?"
"That's what I love about working with you, Valchek. Your eloquence."
"But -but- but-"
"And your motorboat impressions."
"Charlie, if you were there, why didn't you arrest him? ~ D.D. Barant

Conflict is essential to evolution.
-Aleph, Paulo Coelho ~ Paulo Coelho

Most people need a reason to argue - you just need a place. ~ D.D. Barant