Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,507 active remarks.

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Showing 24 of 7,507 · page 81 of 313

“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)

“My earliest memory is of myself, aged a year and a half or two, in my grandparents' courtyard in Seville, playing with a lovely, utterly gentle Angora cat that retreats from my caresses onto a stool upholstered in black gutta-percha, barely within reach of my mischievous little hands.”

Original: La primera imagen mía que yo conservo en la memoria me representa de edad de año y medio o dos años en el patio de la casa de mis abuelos, en Sevilla, jugando con una preciosa—y mansísima—gata de Angora, que se refugia de mis caricias sobre una banqueta forrada de gutapercha negra, a la que apenas alcanzo con mis manecillas revoltosas. — The opening of his academy address, tracing his… · Unos versos, un alma y una época, RAE induction speech, 1938 (Spanish)

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