Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history. – Octavio Paz
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. – Octavio Paz
Our democratic capitalist society has converted Eros into an employee of Mammon. – Octavio Paz
To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes to hear it is to see it with our ears. – Octavio Paz
A boy who hears a lesson in history ended by the beauty of peace, and how Napoleon brought ruin upon the world and that he should be forever cursed, will not long have much confidence in his teacher. He wants to hear more about the fighting and less about the peace negotiations. – William Lee Howard, Peace, Dolls and Pugnacity