Julio Cortazar Quotes

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

I like to quote things.

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!

I quote another man's saying; unluckily, that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me.

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

Everything I write is about me.

Preachers in pulpits talked about what a great message is in the book. No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it..

One of the interesting things about quoting in an artwork is that there is a repeated confusion about who is speaking - one essentially becomes the author of a quote one uses.

The greater part of our writers have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted.

To quote copiously and well, requires taste, judgment, and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound.

My readers, who may at first be apt to consider Quotation as downright pedantry, will be surprised when I assure them, that next to the simple imitation of sounds and gestures, Quotation is the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature. For, Quotation must not be confined to passages adduced out of authors. He who cites the opinion, or remark, or saying of another, whether it has been written or spoken, is certainly one who quotes; and this we shall find to be universally practiced.

All this is labour which never meets the eye.... But too open and generous a revelation of the chapter and the page of the original quoted, has often proved detrimental to the legitimate honours of the quoter. They are unfairly appropriated by the next comer; the quoter is never quoted, but the authority he has afforded is produced by his successor with the air of an original research.

When the modern scholar cites from a classic text, the quotation seems to burn a hole in his own drab page.

When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.

We do an epically bad job of acknowledging one another's work and checking our sources.

Those who never quote, in return are never quoted.

Inevitably, almost everything we say is either quotation or paraphrase.

One may quote till one compiles.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.

I don't tell everything. I want the reader to have the feeling that maybe they know the whole truth, but they don't.

The language that reveals also obscures.

Jesus is the masterpiece. The thieves are minor works. Why are they there? Not to frame the crucifixion, as some innocent souls believe, but to hide it.

Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride.