“So if I did not contradict myself, I would be contradicting myself.”

Original: De modo que si no me contradijese estaría en contradicción conmigo mismo. — A witty defence of a naturally changeable character · Preface, La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Change
• Character
• Wit

“The senses and the heart, if they are not exercised, atrophy and languish.”

Original: Los sentidos y el corazón que no se ejercen, se atrofian y languidecen. — Arguing that feeling and perception must be exercised through life · Letter to Juan Ramón Jiménez, Autocrítica (Spanish)

• Emotion
• Experience
• Life

“I myself, Andalusian, Sevillian to the marrow—from there I come, and my parents and grandparents before me—sing my own feelings in the style of my land, with no aim but to ease them or exalt them, as they pain or please me.”

Original: Yo mismo, andaluz, sevillano hasta la médula (de allí soy, de allí mis padres y mis abuelos), canto al estilo de mi tierra los sentimientos propios, sin otra idea que la de aliviarlos o exaltarlos, según me duelen o me complacen. — Explains his adoption of the Andalusian copla as a vehicle for direct personal feeling rather than folkloric imitation · Preface to Cante hondo, 1912 (Spanish)

• Craft
• Identity
• Poetry