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Quote by Fernando Pessoa

“What’s especially irritating in grammars (have you noticed how exquisitely impossible it is for us to be talking about this?) – the most irritating part of grammars is the chapter on verbs, since these are what give meaning to sentences… An honest sentence should always have any number of possible meanings… Verbs!… A friend of mine who committed suicide – every time I have a longish conversation I suicide a friend – was going to dedicate his life to destroying verbs… - Why did he commit suicide? – Wait, I still don’t know… He wanted to discover and develop a method for surreptitiously not completing sentences. He used to say that he was searching for the microbe of meaning… He committed suicide – yes, of course – because one day he realized what a tremendous responsibility he’d assumed… The enormity of the problem made him go nuts…”

Quote by Fernando Pessoa

Work

The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

The Book of Disquiet is a seminal work by Portuguese poet and writer Fernando Pessoa, featuring a series of personal and philosophical essays, letters, and poems. It is considered a cornerstone of modernist literature, offering a deep and introspective look into the author's thoughts and experiences. more

Author

Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa

Portuguese poet known for his unique narrative style and rich inner world. Fernando Pessoa is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, and his works are still widely studied and discussed today. more

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“The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. ...I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. As for Mary, she was little more than a child when the angel came to her; she had not lost her child's creative acceptance of the realities moving on the other side of the everyday world. We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss.”