Federico García Lorca Quotes

A poet must be a professor of the five senses and must open doors among them.

Everyone understands the pain that accompanies death,
but genuine pain doesn't live in the spirit,
nor in the air, nor in our lives,
nor on these terraces of billowing smoke.
The genuine pain that keeps everything awake
is a tiny, infinite burn
on the innocent eyes of other systems.

Quiero dormir un rato,
un rato, un minuto, un siglo;
pero que todos sepan que no he muerto;
que haya un establo de oro en mis labios;
que soy un pequeño amigo del viento Oeste;
que soy la sombra inmensa de mis lágrimas

Angel and Muse approach from without; the Angel sheds light and the Muse gives form (Hesiod learned of them). Gold leaf or chiton-folds: the poet finds his models in his laurel coppice. But the Duende, on the other hand, must come to life in the nethermost recesses of the blood.

El más terrible de todos los sentimientos es el sentimiento de tener la esperanza muerta.

Paint me a heaven of love with your bloodied mouth.

"Variación / Variations"

El remanso de aire
bajo la rama del eco.

El remanso del agua
bajo fronda de luceros.

El remanso de tu boca
bajo espesura de besos.

*

The still waters of the air
under the bough of the echo.

The still waters of the water
under a frond of stars.

The still waters of your mouth
under a thicket of kisses.

Verde que te quiero verde

Every song
is the remains
of love.

Every light
the remains
of time.
A knot
of time.

And every sigh
the remains
of a cry.

- Every Song

The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
as water weeps
as the wind weeps
over snowfields.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps for distant
things.
Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone

The important thing in life is to let the years carry us along.

"Quasida of the Woman Prone"

To see you naked is to remember the Earth,
the smooth Earth, clean of horses,
the Earth without reeds, pure form,
closed to the future, confine of silver.

To see you naked is to understand the desire
of rain that looks for the delicate waist,
or the fever of the broad-faced sea
that cannot find the light of its cheek.

Blood will ring through the bedrooms
and will come with flaming swords,
but you will not know the hiding places
of the violet or the heart of the toad.

Your womb is a struggle of roots.
Your lips are a dawn without contour.
Under the lukewarm roses of the bed
the dead men moan, awaiting their return.

Pero yo ire,
aunque un sol de alacranes me coma la sien.

Gacela of the Flight”

I have lost myself in the sea many tunes
with my ear full of freshly cut flowers,
with my tongue full of love awl agony.
I have lost myself in the sea many times
as I lose myself in the heart of certain children.

There is no one who in giving a kiss
does not feel the smile of faceless people,
and no one who in touching a newborn child
forgets the motionless skulls of horses.

Because the roses search in the forehead
for a hard landscape of hone
and the hands of man hate no other purpose
than to imitate the roots below the earth.

As I lose myself in the heart of certain children,
I have lost myself in the sea many times.
Ignorant of the water I go seeking
a death full of light to consume me.