Juan Rulfo Quotes & Sayings

And though there were no children playing, no doves, no blue-shadowed roof tiles, I felt that the town was alive. And that if I heard only silence, it was because I was not accustomed to silence - maybe because my head was still filled with sounds and voices. — Juan Rulfo

She's saying she used to hide her feet between his legs. Feet icy as cold stones, and that he warmed them, like bread baking in the oven. She says he nibbled her feet saying they were like golden loaves from the oven. And that she slept cuddled close to him, inside his skin, lost in nothingness as she felt her flesh part like a furrow turned by a plow first burning, then warm and gentle thrusting against her soft flesh, deeper, deeper until she cried out ... What shall I do now with my lips without his lips to cover them? What shall become of my poor lips? — Juan Rulfo

The sky was filled with fat stars, swollen from the long night. The moon had risen briefly and then slipped out of sight. It was one of those sad moons that no one looks at or pays attention to. It had hung there a while, misshapen, not shedding any light, and then gone to hide behind the hills. — Juan Rulfo

That town sits on the coals of the earth, at the very mouth of hell. They say that when people from there go to hell, they come back for a blanket. — Juan Rulfo

This town is filled with echoes. It's like they were trapped behind the walls, or beneath the cobblestones. When you walk you feel like someone's behind you, stepping in your footsteps. — Juan Rulfo

Her eyelashes lay still; her heart was still. — Juan Rulfo

There was no air; only the dead, still night fired by the dog days of August. Not a breath. I had to suck in the same air I exhaled, cupping it in my hands before it escaped. I felt it, in and out, less each time ... until it was so thin it slipped through my fingers forever. I mean, forever. — Juan Rulfo

I am lying in the same bed where my mother died so long ago; on the same mattress,
beneath the same black wool coverlet she wrapped us in to sleep. I slept beside her, her
little girl, in the special place she made for me in her arms.
I think I can still feel the calm rhythm of her breathing; the palpitations and sighs that
soothed my sleep ... I think I feel the pain of her death ... But that isn't true.
Here I lie, flat on my back, hoping to forget my loneliness by remembering those times.
Because I am not here just for a while. And I am not in my mother's bed but in a black box
like the ones for burying the dead. Because I am dead.
I sense where I am, but I can think ... — Juan Rulfo

I am talking about misery and all of its implications. — Juan Rulfo

Because to write, one must truly suffer. — Juan Rulfo

Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last. — Juan Rulfo

Every author that creates is a liar;literature is a lie,but from that lie, a recreation of reality is born. Therefore, recreating reality is one of the fundaments of creation. — Juan Rulfo

You've been dreaming lies again, Susana. — Juan Rulfo

This world presses in on us from every side; it scatters fistfuls of our dust across the land
and takes bits and pieces of us as if to water the earth with our blood. What did we do? Why
have our souls rotted away? — Juan Rulfo

There you'll find the place I love most in the world. The place where I grew thin from dreaming. My village, rising from the plain. Shaded with trees and leaves like a piggy bank filled with memories. You'll see why a person would want to live there forever. Dawn, morning, mid-day, night: all the same, except for the changes in the air. The air changes the color of things there. And life whirs by as quiet as a murmur ... the pure murmuring of life. — Juan Rulfo

No one knows better than I do how far heaven is, but I also know all the shortcuts. The secret is to die, when you want to, and not when He proposes. Or else to force Him to take you before your time. — Juan Rulfo