José Baroja Quotes

No one said this would be easy (...) Writing is not. Do not forget that the pen is the tool, yes, but art must be born from you, from your readings...

Literary art feeds on the fragility of life.

Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off.

Original source: ... lo literario se alimenta de la fragilidad de la vida. Baroja, J. (2018). En El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos. Barcelona: Ediciones Oblicuas, ISBN:978-84-172694-0-1.

Original source: Pienso que vivir solo de la escritura es un privilegio, en términos económicos, que solo algunos escritores y escritoras han conseguido y al que, probablemente, todos los autores aspiramos: una meta difícil que no imposible. Cazas Fernández, A. (2022). "La escritura le aportó sentido, coherencia e identidad a mi vida". En Correo Gallego. . Retrieved June 16, 2022.

In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances.

Who today asks your poem where the country is going?

Original source: Toda obra literaria es un acto político, no en el sentido panfletario que tanto daño ha hecho al arte, sino en ese modo íntimo, y a veces devastador, en que una frase, una imagen, un personaje pueden sacudir al lector lo suficiente como para hacerle dudar de sus propias certezas. Grupo Ígneo (2025). Entrevista a José Baroja: El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos. . Retrieved june 11, 2025.

I think that living only from writing is a privilege, in economic terms, that only some writers have achieved and to which, probably, all authors aspire: a difficult goal that is not impossible.

That's the writer's game: everything is about us.

Original source: Es día de pago, razón suficiente para que los clientes atiborren cada espacio del local en busca de una cerveza. Hoy hay dinero ergo hay trago. Bibere ergo sum.. Baroja, J. (2023). Reflejo. . Retrieved June 20, 2023.

The memory is like the wind, sometimes warm, gentle and prone to a smile, sometimes violent, merciless and unwelcome. The memory looks like the wind, period, and that explains why the wind can bring with it the memory.

Every literary work is a political act—not in the pamphleteering sense, which has done so much harm to art, but in that intimate—and sometimes devastating—way in which a phrase, an image, a character can shake the reader enough to make them doubt their own certainties.

For a writer, life must be the focus that death illuminates daily.

God? Christ. The Virgin. This Guadalajara is so rich in cathedrals, so rich in appearances, that I am sure that these are the true foundations of the city and its misfortune: the rain washes away the sin of this world...