Octavio Paz Quotes
Poetry, in the past, was the center of our society, but with modernity it has retreated to the outskirts. I think the exile of poetry is also the exile of the best of humankind.

Quotes to Explore
-
You can never plan the future by the past.
-
Many past products advertised in old publications can be profitably promoted all over again. Sometimes, just by giving them a new twist or modern application, you'll hit a real winner.
-
I think fashion is actually very good training for being in the tech world, because it's all about moving on to the next thing, looking for the next thing, not getting stuck in the past.
-
For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.
-
I think poetry's always a kind of faith. It is the kind that I have.
-
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
-
You can't reorder any society from outside. You can help from within.
-
That's the kind of consumer society we live in. We're always looking for the next product that's going to change your life instead of just going out and changing your life.
-
The illusion is that most of my work is simply about past events: a point in history and nothing else.
-
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.
-
I think Stella Tennant is amazing. And then I really loved all those '60s society models, like Edie Sedgwick.
-
Orwell wasn't right about where society was in 1984. We haven't turned into that sort of surveillance society. But that may be, at least in small part, because of his book. The notion that ubiquitous surveillance and state manipulation of the media is evil is deeply engrained in us.
-
Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
-
I believe we need more culturally diverse books - about disabled characters, though not about their disability, about people with different sexual orientations, or a boy who is a cross-dresser. We need to reflect the diversity of our society.
-
I knew that I did not have to buy into society's notion that I had to be handsome and healthy to be happy. I was in charge of my 'spaceship' and it was my up, my down. I could choose to see this situation as a setback or as a starting point. I chose to begin life again.
-
It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe; but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.
-
A character on stage who can present no convincing argument or information as to his past experience, his present behaviour or his aspirations, nor give a comprehensive analysis of his motives, is as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, alarmingly, can do all these things.
-
You had to make an appointment to see her. But it was just a crazy spectacle, people filing past.
-
But most Canadians have recognized to a greater or lesser extent that despite much of the so-called progress of the affluent society, essential ingredients to a meaningful life seem to be either entirely lacking, or at best, difficult to grasp.
-
For mankind as a whole, a possession infinitely more valuable than individual life is our genetic heritage, our link with past and future... Yet genetic deterioration through man-made agents is the menace of our time.
-
There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.
-
Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.
-
Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It's almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.
-
Poetry, in the past, was the center of our society, but with modernity it has retreated to the outskirts. I think the exile of poetry is also the exile of the best of humankind.