Julio Quotes & Sayings

Now that I think about it, it seems to me that's what Idiocy is: the ability to be enthusiastic all the time about anything you like, so that a drawing on the wall does not have to be diminished by the memory of the frescoes of Giotto in Padua. — Julio Cortazar

For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe. — Julio Cortazar

You retire when you are sick and when you can't do it any more or when the public retires you. That's the most painful, because that's the one that leaves you wanting to accomplish more. — Julio Iglesias

All established order forms a line of resistance against the threat of rupture and places its meager forces at the service of continuity. That everything should continue as usual is the bourgeois standard of a reality that is indeed bourgeois precisely because it is a standard. — Julio Cortazar

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

I realized that searching was my symbol, the emblem of those who go out at night with nothing in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses. — Julio Cortazar

You're like a witness. You're the one who goes to the museum and looks at the paintings. I mean the paintings are there and you're in the museum too, near and far away at the same time. I'm a painting. Rocamadour is a painting. Etienne is a painting, this room is a painting. You think that you're in the room but you're not. You're looking at the room, you're not in the room. — Julio Cortazar

On top of physical pain like a metaphysical pinprick, writing abounds. — Julio Cortazar

My skin hungered for you. You were warm, and alive, and in my bed, and I wanted you so bad I could feel the ripple of need on the pads of my fingertips, on the palms of my hands, on the skin of my back, at the base of my cock, inside my ass
I wanted the taste of you in my mouth. — Julio Alexi Genao

Only in dreams, in poetry, in play do we sometimes arrive at what we were before we were this thing that, who knows, we are. — Julio Cortazar

It's like a - like a video panel, you know that? Your face. I don't think you realize how much of what happens inside you that can be seen in your face.
Maybe it was just me. I paid attention to you. — Julio Alexi Genao

I think we all have a little bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us walking when everything around us is so insanely sane. — Julio Cortazar

(memory is) A strange echo, which stores its replicas according to some other acoustic than consciousness or expectation.
— Julio Cortazar

You're safe, here."
"But you are not," you whispered. "Not ever. I forget. I forget and then I'll - I could kill you."
When I didn't reply, you dropped your head again.
I almost missed it when you murmured, "I always kill them, in the end. — Julio Alexi Genao

I don't believe in frontiers, and I don't believe in races or nationalities. — Julio Iglesias

I have never described this to you before, not so much, I don't think, from lack of truthfulness as that, just naturally, one is not going to explain to people at large that from time to time one vomits up a small rabbit. — Julio Cortazar

Sometimes, you think you have forgotten everything, that the rust and dust of the years have destroyed all the things we once entrusted to their voracious appetite. But all it takes is a noise, a smell, a sudden, unexpected touch, and suddenly the alluvion of time sweeps pitilessly over us, and our memories light up with all the brilliance and fury of a lightning flash — Julio Llamazares

I don't feel so sad when somebody dies, Julio, because they fly away to explore the stars and planets. When it's our turn we join them in exploring the universe. — Gilbert Hernandez

What's the purpose of being with someone if they don't change your life? She said that, and Julio was present when she said it: that life only had purpose if you found someone who changed it, who destroyed your life. — Alejandro Zambra

Health systems usually deal with the consequences of violence. We normally, in the health system, don't have the tools to prevent it, because these require policy interventions in every arena. — Julio Frenk

We find only one tool, neither created nor invented, but perfect: the hand of man. — Julio Ramon Ribeyro

I'd removed all but my underclothes, that night I took you home. Took off all the drab corporate synthetics as if stripping my armor to uncover the vulnerable man I was underneath it.
The man who needed to be near you.
I'd pressed my back into your solid length, eyes wet as I fell asleep.
That's why I was calm. — Julio Alexi Genao

All the enormous machines that keep full Citizens comfortable far above us in their glittering towers, all the infrastructure of power, of fuel, of commerce and industry - all of it happens below. Made possible with our hands. With our bodies.
With our lives.
I would have done anything to escape.
I got my chance. I made it out - but the price was loneliness. — Julio Alexi Genao

Theo explained, in what he thought was perfect Spanish, that Julio needed extra help with his algebra. Evidently, she did not understand perfect Spanish because she asked Julio what Theo was talking about. — John Grisham

You try to avoid the mistakes you made in the past. — Julio Iglesias

People in love look into each other's souls, and it is that feeling that I try to capture when I sing. — Julio Iglesias

What's the deal with the bossman?" Urian asked him.
Alexion shrugged. "I don't know. He came in last night with a book, went to his room to read, I suppose, and then he came out here this morning and has been playing ... those songs ever since."
Those songs were ballads, which Acheron never played. God-smack, Sex Pistols, TSOL, Judas Priest, but not ...
"Is that ... " Urian physically cringed before he spat out the name, "Julio Iglesias?"
"Enrique."
Urian grimaced in horror. "I didn't even know he knew any mellow shit. Dear gods ... is he ill?"
"I don't know. In nine thousand years, I've never seen him like this before."
Urian shuddered. "I'm beginning to get scared. This has to be a sign of the Apocalypse. If he breaks out into Air Supply, I say we sneeak up on him, drag him outside and beat the holy shit out of him. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

An admirable line of Pablo Neruda's, "My creatures are born of a long denial," seems to me the best definition of writing as a kind of exorcism, casting off invading creatures by projecting them into universal existence, keeping them on the other side of the bridge ... It may be exaggerating to say that all completely successful short stories, especially fantastic stories, are products of neurosis, nightmares or hallucination neutralized through objectification and translated to a medium outside the neurotic terrain. This polarization can be found in any memorable short story, as if the author, wanting to rid himself of his creature as soon and as absolutely as possible, exorcises it the only way he can: by writing it. — Julio Cortazar

Six months ago. Six, sax, sex. — Julio Cortazar

You let me set the water in the shower, and followed me into the booth to stand there with me under the warm spray. You kept your head down, not looking me in the eyes - though if you were shy, I couldn't tell. You had no reason to be. You know what you look like.
I know you don't remember what we did.
I want to tell you. — Julio Alexi Genao

I am a lover for sure. I love to be loved. — Julio Iglesias

Happy was she who could believe without seeing, who was at one with the duration and continuity of life. — Julio Cortazar

...'You are like tango music itself, Kapka.' Julio says, catching his breath. 'You're the universal woman- wherever you go, you will always be a local and a stranger at the same time. — Kapka Kassabova

The modern story begun, one might say, with Edgar Allan Poe, which proceeds inexorably, like a machine destined to accomplish its mission with the maximum economy of means. — Julio Cortazar

My brother Julio and I worked to improve the quality of wines from California and to put fine wine on American dinner tables at a price people could afford — Ernest Gallo

I feel ashamed tonight that we treated Lennox Lewis the way we did because he gave it all his effort but everytime Don King's involved, you can expect a draw to come from somewhere. Ask Pernell Whitaker about the Julio Cesar Chavez fight ... I thought Evander Holyfield gave a very game effort, but you win some and you lose some ... tonight I'm upset because Lennox Lewis did not lose and it was not a draw. It's as simple as that. — Roy Jones Jr.

The only thing worse than a bigot is an "ally" who can't stop congratulating themselves on their enlightenment. — Julio Alexi Genao

That's how it is, Rocamadour: in Paris we're like fungus, we grow on the railings of staircases, in dark rooms with greasy smells, where people make love all the time and then fry some eggs and put on Vivaldi records, light cigarettes ... and outside there are all sorts of things, the windows open onto the air and it all begins with a sparrow or a gutter, it rains a lot here, rocamadour, much more than in the country, and things get rusty ... we don't have many clothes, we get along with so few, a good overcoat, some shoes to keep the rain out, we're very dirty, everybody is dirty and good-looking in Paris, Rocamadour, the beds smell of night and deep sleep, dust and books underneath. — Julio Cortazar

I have a great liking for polygraphs who cast their fishing poles in all
directions ... — Julio Cortazar

I'm nothing, here. A lowly surveillance analyst. Being the hero could have meant something good for me. Could have changed my whole life.
I could have done it. I should have done it.
I sat there and I thought about you, instead. — Julio Alexi Genao

Skill alone cannot teach or produce a great short story, which condenses the obsession of the creature; it is a hallucinatory presence manifest from the first sentence to fascinate the reader, to make him lose contact with the dull reality that surrounds him, submerging him in another that is more intense and compelling. — Julio Cortazar

When you get to the 35-year mark in your career, you make albums for your fans to love you more, so they don't forget about you. — Julio Iglesias

My life is to sing. — Julio Iglesias

We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe. — Julio Cortazar

Julio was willing to bet that Officer "I've Seen It All" Mac had never seen a horde of black-skinned demons wearing rags and armor and carrying swords and spears, dragging a naked woman and a chubby boy by a rope. No, he was willing to bet his left nut that even officer Mac had never seen such a thing. — Brom

I wanted to take your hand into mine and kiss it.
I never dared. — Julio Alexi Genao

The evolution from happiness to habit is one of death's best weapons. — Julio Cortazar

We're excited to be appearing in Tel Aviv in the framework of the Pic.nic festival. This is an important tour for us and we're glad that Israel is part of it — Julio Iglesias

Explanation is a well-dressed error. — Julio Cortazar

Things end. Everything ends. But for a few days in a city full of hunger, and avarice, and alienation - in this fucked-up mess of a life spent wandering in the dark without a hand to hold on to - I was not alone. And neither were you. — Julio Alexi Genao

What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I've seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think it's just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn't picked out, Juliet wasn't picked out. You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert. — Julio Cortazar

Man has reached the moon, but twenty centuries ago a poet knew the enchantments that would make the moon come down to earth. — Julio Cortazar

The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout. — Julio Cortazar

I love intimacy, always, of performing. — Julio Iglesias

What really matters?
people. always people.
protect yourself from people. but love some of them, also.
because that's all there is. — Julio Alexi Genao

Being alive always seems to be the price of something. — Julio Cortazar

And there's blues in my bed, 'cause l'm sleepin' by myself. — Julio Cortazar

I like to exercise. I always walk an hour a day, I swim 250 days a year and I do balancing exercises which take me an hour. — Julio Iglesias

Habits, Andrea, are concrete forms of rhythm, are that portion of rhythm which helps to keep us alive. — Julio Cortazar

Seal the Deal, more than a traditional book, is a series of powerful coaching sessions dealing with a big breakdown that many excellent coaches and consultants face today: they don't know how to sell their services to organizations. Suzi Pomerantz not only knows, she can also coach us so we can learn that critical ability. — Julio Olalla

Mathematics is one of the surest ways for a man to feel the power of thought and the magic of the spirit. Mathematics is one of the eternal truths and, as such, raises the spirit to the same level on which we feel the presence of God. — Julio Cesar De Mello E Souza

The archive of supposed photocopies (I.E. memory) actually offers up strange creatures; the green paradise of childhood loves that Baudelaire recalled is for many a future in reverse, an obverse of hope in the face of the gray purgatory of adult loves. — Julio Cortazar

To get the idea that you are the center," Oliveira thought, resting more comfortably on the board. "But it's incalculably stupid. A center as illusory as it would be to try to find ubiquity. There is no center, there's a kind of continuous confluence, an undulation of matter. All through the night I'm a motionless body, and on the other side of town a roll of newsprint is being converted into the morning paper, and at eight-forty I will leave the house and at eight-twenty the paper will have arrived at the newsstand on the corner, and at eight forty-five my hand and the newspaper will come together and begin to move together through the air, three feet from the ground, heading towards the streetcar stop. — Julio Cortazar

At a very young age, I was influenced enormously by Julio Cortazar or Carlos Fuentes. In that literature, there's always an exploration of different perspectives, points of view. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Oh, to be told a blissful lie
that might be true! — Julio Dantas

And it is also the only reward for my work: to feel what I have written is like the back of a cat as it is being petted, with sparks and an arching in cadence. (page 402) — Julio Cortazar

I am I, I am he. We are, but I am I, first I am I, I will defend being I until I am unable to fight any longer. I am I, Atalia. Ego. Yo. A professional degree, an Argentine, a scarlet fingernail, pretty sometimes, big dark eyes, I. Atalia Donosi, I. Yo. Yo-yo, windlass and hawser. Funny. — Julio Cortazar

During his reading hours, which were between one and five o'clock in the morning, but not every morning, he had come to the disconcerting conclusion that whistling was not an important theme in literature. — Julio Cortazar

The fantastic breaks the crust of appearance ... something grabs us by the shoulders to throw us outside ourselves. I have always known that the big surprises await us where we have learned to be surprised by nothing, that is, where we are not shocked by ruptures in the order. — Julio Cortazar

Fuck that person. Fuck them in the face.
With a cabbage. — Julio Alexi Genao

I loved you even when you forgot me.
And - for a little while - you loved me back. — Julio Alexi Genao

Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies. — Julio Cortazar

If I were a moviemaker I'd set about hunting sunsets. — Julio Cortazar

Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself. Etcetera. — Julio Cortazar

Literature is ... a game, but it's a game one can put one's life into. — Julio Cortazar

I didn't know what to do.
I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I was supposed to do.
But I didn't know what I was going to do. — Julio Alexi Genao

But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously ... — Julio Cortazar

I gave you all my secrets, and you lost them all. You lost a lot of things.
But the treasure of it was in the giving, not the keeping. — Julio Alexi Genao

My wife is Dutch and very independent. She never wanted or needed to be married. — Julio Iglesias

The best sci-fi stories use the fantastical to remind us of the reality of who we are today, the hope of who we may become tomorrow, and the shame of who we were yesterday. — Julio Alexi Genao

...there are enormous regions where I have never been, and what one has not known is what one has not been. An anxiety to start running, go into a house, into that store, jump on a train, devour all of Jouhandeau, know German... What is defective is felt more as an intuitive poverty than as a mere lack of experience. It really doesn't afflict me not having read all of Jouhandeau, at most the melancholy feeling of too short a life for so many libraries, etc. The lack of experience is inevitable, if I read Joyce I am automatically sacrificing another book and vice versa, etc. The feeling of lack is sharper in... zones for detention of your eyes, your smell, your taste, and you can't get beyond that limit when you think you've caught anything fully, just like an iceberg the thing has a small piece outside and shows it to you, and the enormous rest of it is beyond our limits and that's why the Titanic went down. — Julio Cortazar

When you hear a Spanish cook describe a paella or a cake, you realize she's using a much richer repertoire of adjectives than what one of us would use to characterize a book or an important experience. — Julio Cortazar

I have respected women from the beginning of my life. — Julio Iglesias

I couldn't make myself move from the bed. To reach for you. I'd known this moment was coming, and now that it had arrived I found I had no strength in my limbs.
Only my voice. Only words.
Asking you to stay. — Julio Alexi Genao

People say life is short.
life's not short - it's long.
the memory of a human being: that's what's short. — Julio Alexi Genao

Passion has been in my DNA for generations. — Julio Iglesias

All I have to do is to look at you to know that with you, I am going to soak my soul — Julio Cortazar

Go ahead, deny up and down that the delicate act of turning the doorknob, that act which may transform everything, is done with the indifferent vigor of a daily reflex. See you later, sweetheart. Have a good day.
Tighten your fingers around a teaspoon, feel its metal pulse, its mistrustful warning. How it hurts to refuse a spoon, to say no to a door, to deny everything that habit has licked to a suitable smoothness. How much simpler to accept the easy request of the spoon, to use it, to stir the coffee. — Julio Cortazar

What it is
is the memory of a dance
a song you heard long ago
to hear it is to be young again
and for once
for once you are happy — Julio Alexi Genao

I like to relax. — Julio Iglesias

I have discipline; I look after my voice. — Julio Iglesias

Salt and the center of the world have to be there, in that spot on the tablecloth. — Julio Cortazar

Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity. — Julio Cortazar

If you look more broadly at injury, so it includes also accidents, it's the largest cause of death in children of school age in Mexico. It's an enormous problem. — Julio Frenk

I'm such a jerk; it had never occurred to me that when we look at a photo from the front, the eyes reproduce exactly the position and the vision of the lens; it's these things that are taken for granted and it never occurs to anyone to think about them. — Julio Cortazar

[Heaven is] that moment in which something attains its maximum depth, its maximum reach, its maximum sense, and becomes completely uninteresting. — Julio Cortazar

What good is a writer if he can't destroy literature? And us ... what good are we if we don't help as much as we can in that destruction? — Julio Cortazar

I am not an artist which is 'in.' — Julio Iglesias

Time is born in the eyes, everybody knows that. — Julio Cortazar

They'd come for you, and this time they'd come with weapons.
I was afraid of that. For you. But not of you.
Never afraid of you. — Julio Alexi Genao