I have in me like a haze Which holds and which is nothing A nostalgia for nothing at all, The desire for something vague. — Fernando Pessoa, from “[I have in me like a haze],” Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems. Translated by Richard Zenith. (Grove Press, 1998)
Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. ― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet. (Penguin Classics; New Ed edition December 31, 2002) Originally published 1982.
Being tired of all illusions and of everything about illusions – the loss of illusions, the uselessness of having them, the prefatigue of having to have them in order to lose them, the sadness of having had them, the intellectual shame of having had them knowing that they would have to end this way. ―… Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not toa write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with… Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
We’ve worn our words to death, when now I say: my love, nothing happens, absolutely nothing. And yet, before the words were spent, I’m certain that everything trembled at the mere murmur of your name in the silence of my heart. Now we have nothing to give. There is nothing within you that asks me… Continue reading Eugénio de Andrade
We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin. ― Fernando Pessoa
I’ve never aspired to be more than a dreamer. I paid no attention to those who spoke to me of living. I’ve always belonged to what isn’t where I am and to what I could never be. Whatever isn’t mine, no matter how base, has always had poetry for me. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book… Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
