Odysseus Elytis Quotes

#1. Forced relations between two things that superficially appear foreign create a new, instantaneous state. Authentic poetry asks nothing more. A kinship completely nonexistent moments ago was created by the poet's authority, just as it might have been created in life by the authority of chance.

Odysseus Elytis

#2. The splendor of youth is, to a point, the splendor of error. Jealous the old, who have everything previewed! The nightingale will never come sing over your wisdom. It won't, darlin', it won't.

Odysseus Elytis

#3. I like to begin where winds shake the first branch.

Odysseus Elytis

#4. But you must know that only he who fights the darkness within will the day after tomorrow have his own share in the sun.

Odysseus Elytis

#5. Coincidence, when raised to a symbol, occurs with mathematical precision at the most crucial moment, even for the squarest of minds. A moment the rest of us call higher will, Fate's gesture, something like that.

Odysseus Elytis

#6. You'll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth

Odysseus Elytis

#7. This is why I write. Because poetry begins where death is robbed of the last word.

Odysseus Elytis

#8. Logic has rid us of the absurdity of our clothes. That's progress, no irony, only now we are cold. Hale and ill trade bodies with unusual willingness, while in midair souls tangle. The young start out disgusted and Poetry is left to the memo-writers.

Odysseus Elytis

#9. Willing or not, we are all hostages of the joy of which we deprive ourselves. Here springs love's pre-eternal sadness.

Odysseus Elytis