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Teresa de la Parra

47 quotes

“I take as my masters in the expression of the modern novel Anatole France, Alphonse Daudet, Maupassant, Catulle Mendés, and Valle Inclán. I consider them my masters because I believe they have influenced me the most.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: said to the Colombian journalist Uribe Muñoz, English translation quoted in "Mama Blanca's Memoirs and the Author Remembered" by Velia Bosch in Mama Blanca's Memoirs : Critical Edition (1993)
“I could say to you sternly: 'Go thou and sin no more,' except that I don't hold with upbraiding sin too severely. If it were forbidden, its absence might leave the world an arid desert, for what would life be worth without the grace of forgiveness and tolerance?" (from Forward)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...your silent forgiveness was a great offense, and it would have made for far better relations between you and your six little girls if from time to time you had shown your disappointment in word and act. That resignation of yours was like a huge tree that you had felled across the pathway to our hearts. ("Blanca Nieves and Company")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...his image was to become clearly impressed on us in its every detail like a bust carved on one of those medallions hidden in the bottom of a trunk, and which are brought out and gazed upon with loving eyes at long intervals. (from "Here Comes Cousin Juancho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I set down these words, two big tears roll down my cheeks, wrinkled as much by the rictus of sorrow as by the lines laughter has imprinted on them over the years. One of these tears is for the irreparable loss of the dear departed. The other, for the infinite sorrow it gives me to know that above the cherished ashes, always triumphant, always terrible, like an angel of vengeance with a flaming sword, barring the gate of all that is pleasant, we are left, not with grace and wit but, for our sins, with emphasis. ("Here Comes Cousin Juancho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The weaknesses, the shortcomings, or imperfections of my soul, like those of most, are numerous, I admit. They have encircled me, gay and unabashed, all my life long, like a flock of sheep its shepherdess. Instead of my leading them, I have allowed them to lead me over the years, submissively and willingly. Thus they have grown attached to my person, and not one has strayed away; they are all here. (beginning of "Vicente Cochocho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Glory is only for those who seek her," a sage once remarked. ("Vicente Cochocho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who ever remembers to thank the sun for shining or water for quenching one's thirst? ("Vicente Cochocho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody is a prophet in their own country. ("Vicente Cochocho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His soul did not know the meaning of hate. Belonging, as one might say, to the vegetable kingdom, he accepted without protest the iniquities of man and the injustices of nature. Submerged in the water, or clinging to the stones, insult him as they might, he went on impassively yielding his fruits and his flowers, good plant that he was. ("Vicente Cochocho")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[She] had returned to Trinidad. Nobody scolded us any more. There was no longer anyone to salt or season the insipidness of life with prohibitions. Our whims that were born strong and numerous, without a watchful hand to prune them, smothered us in melancholy. (from "Aurora")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Like others older and wiser than us, we were ignorant of a truth that is never really learned - a truth I have not yet been able to keep in mind more than five minutes - which is that the most enticing change, the most alluring travels, in their monotonous variety reveal to us only one transcendent, cruel new thing: our utter human misery and our blithe ignorance of it, an ignorance forever lost in which living was so sweet. (from "Aurora")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truth is bitter. I swallowed it in silence. ("Aurora")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At last I'm writing to you, dear Cristina! I don't know what you must have thought of me. When we said goodbye on the station platform in Biarritz, I remember that I, full of sorrow, sighs, and packages, told you while I hugged you, "I'll write soon, soon, very soon!" (beginning)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know how to lie very well when I talk, but I don't know how to lie when I write, and since I didn't want to tell you the truth for anything in the world, because it seemed very humiliating to me, I had decided to say nothing. But now I've decided that the truth to which I refer is not humiliating, but instead is picturesque, interesting, and somewhat medieval. Therefore, I have resolved to confess everything openly, trusting you are capable of hearing the pain that cries out in my words.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Receive...this portion of my spirit, and don't forget that here from my solitude, sunken in the silence of its "closed orchard," it waits in turn for you to come.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creo que la antipatía es un sentimiento caprichoso y superficial que en el fondo no existe ni tiene razón de ser. En realidad casi nadie es antipático. Si se considera a las personas muy de cerca y se penetra con bondad en la esencia de su psicología, acabamos por admirar sus cualidades y tolerar sus defectos...”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I who for two years or more anxiously awaited the coming of love, I who waited for it on bended knee as if for the archangel of the Annunciation, now that it has come to me, now that I behold it up close and face to face, its brilliancy has blinded my pupils and the majesty of its grandeur crushes me... (chapter 1)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am writing to forget my fear . . .”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But, oh! this immense anxiety, where does it come from, dear Lord?. . . It must without a doubt come from lack of sleep and from the dreadful tension that dwells in my alert and trembling heart, as it listens to the footsteps of death, which walks, always near, and always, always, without arriving! . . . (chapter 3)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How true it is, as Gregoria says, when she sets forth her fatalistic doctrines and explains, "What is going to come, starts walking and walking, and its steps are counted, and it arrives when you least expect it, even if you try to dodge." It's true. Gregoria is right! (Chapter 5)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[His] lips can't appear in my mind because they have remained on my mouth, and I feel them there, clinging and burning, as if I were feeling a wound, the kind burning embers leave on your skin! In vain, for more than two hours as I've been writing, I've brushed my mouth with the back of my cold hand. I've tried to tear [his] burning lips from mine. They horrify and frighten me, but no matter what I do, I can't get them off my mouth. They are stuck, stuck tight, like scars made by hot coals, scars that will be there eternally! (chapter 5)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh! The silent conformity of those who live when their souls are dead! Oh! The silence of those who are resigned, who walk in the great caravan, and walk, carrying a burden of mystery on their shoulders, never asking how long they must walk, nor where they are going, nor for what reason. Life, the cruel and bloodthirsty captain of the great caravan, lashes us with her whip of hours to force us to carry the burden down the road, and to leave it wherever she says, "here"! (chapter 9)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How far away, how far, I see your thousand little lights fading, little fireflies of love, mystic lamps, a legion of twinkling, distant stars that, like an impossible sky, will always shine above the profound darkness of my resignation and my chains! (chapter 9)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, no, no, the horrible torture of that morning, whose light my eyes never should have seen. That cruel torture, even though my memory retained many of its details, I wouldn't be able to describe it now with words. Words can't say! Words don't know! (chapter 9)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...I thought about the iniquitous injustice with which our shares are distributed in the great fair of life. All the happiness for some, all the pain for others. I thought too about the invisible force that fatally guides our destinies, and with my face always hidden under the tear-drenched pillow, I condensed that complex absurdity into a single word, and I murmured many times, desperate and defeated, "Oh! Life! Life!”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I made María Eugenia Alonso the antithesis of myself. I gave her qualities and defects I don't have, so no one would confuse me with her. María Eugenia Alonso is a synthesis, a living copy of several women I've seen close up, who suffer in silence and to whom I wanted to give a voice. (1932)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“it's only after we've heard the bitter voice of censure and reproach that we can appreciate, by contrast, the sweetness that comes of understanding. (March 5, 1927)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Venezuela, diatribe is nonexistent, since there is no opposition. Irony is deformed and exaggerated and reduced to the category of insult. True irony, like charity, begins at home and should smile benevolently and should be perfumed with indulgence. Irony is different than cruel and vulgar mockery. (1927)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who think they know their native land well because they have never traveled outside it are mistaken. Through travel we get to know our own native land better. (1927)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've come to the conclusion...that the best restorations are those brought on by nostalgia and illuminated by sweet melancholy; these will live on eternally noble in the divine grace of memory. (1926)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My rebellious spirit keeps me from following too many academic rules and I will not bow to the Academy's (La Real Academia Española) dictatorship, since I am more interested in the sound of words, rather than in necessity, our mother, and usage, our brother. (1925)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lyric poetry bares the soul and needs great purity and modesty or it risks becoming comical. (1925)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the soul would suffice and I could do without the body (To Gonzalo Zaldumbide, August 1924)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like poets and writers who stimulate my dreams, these are the true masters of the soul. (to Clemencia Miró)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have said and still say that the dirtiest jobs are coal and politics. One almost always gets one's hands soiled.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English translation quoted in "Mama Blanca's Memoirs and the Author Remembered" by Velia Bosch in Mama Blanca's Memoirs : Critical Edition (1993)
“I always preferred the humble and cool woods, where I could run away from all that. My feet know how tiring that road can be, and my poor unskilled hands, though active, are tired with having to wring the necks of the squawking birds of eloquence.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since the beginning of time it's been this fear, that secretly teaches maidens to smile, to silently make the arrangements for funerals and wakes, discreetly plan weddings, and with her blessing she gives the bride a deep peace that smoothes the past and colors the roses in the dark destinies that were accepted, rather than chosen.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real objective of my book was to show our mysterious duality and the terrible conflicts that surprise us- between what we are and what we think we are. And the final painful question posed to the reader- Who is the real me; the me who thinks or the me who acts? I tried to come between Iphigenia and the reader, letting the reader know that she doesn't know herself. The only well-written part of Iphigenia is the part not written, what is said without words, so that the reader's benevolence could read in a whisper what the critic would read in a shout.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mama Blanca, who on her death bequeathed me fond memories and some five hundred sheets of linen paper written in her fine, wavering English handwriting, was no relation of mine. Those pages, written toward the close of her life, and which I cherish tenderly, have the humble, monotonous simplicity that characterized her domestic existence, and, unbound, bulky, were fastened together at the back with a narrow silk cord whose color time and the touch of my fingers and those of the departed had blurred. It was not kinship that bound me to Mama Blanca, but mysterious spiritual affinities that in the commerce of souls weave the brief or enduring web of sympathy, friendship, or love, which are separate stages in that supreme joy of mutual understanding. (beginning of "Foreword")”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh! It's so strange how little influence our convictions have on our behavior! I believe that in general our convictions are made to be applied to the conduct of other people, because that is when they appear in all the splendor of their integrity: solid, well-rooted, and unbreakable. On the other hand, when it has to do with ourselves, as in the present case, our opinions or convictions instantly take on the flexibility of wax, and they accommodate and mold themselves wonderfully to the most capricious accidents of our conduct. The great majority of people, endowed as they are with a certain conciliatory spirit, admirably explain away such mysterious discrepancies, with reasons or excuses. Thus, thanks to eloquence and logic, the two inseparable sisters--conviction and conduct—are held in a perpetual embrace of perfect harmony. Unfortunately, I absolutely lack the imagination to establish these agreements and it frequently happens that I find myself, as I do today, in flagrant contradiction.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You may take me to San Nicolás...but you can only imprison my body there; you'll never imprison my spirit, never, because every day it will fly up to the branches, it will perch for hours and hours on the telephone lines, it will fly over the hills, it will dart over ravines and rivers, it will hop across the rooftops, and it will come to sing like a sparrow in the eaves of Mercedes's patio. There, at night, from eight o'clock to eleven, with its invisible eyes, it will see everything it wishes. And perhaps soon, very soon, when you least expect it, those weak sparrow's wings will fly away with my body, too, because I'll get married. C3?”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For many days I've been waiting for it, this horrible news, and yet, when I heard it, I experienced the strange shock of a vibrant and perennial pain, always new and always sharp. It is plastered on my heart, and it hurts me so much, so very much, that I would like to die at once or I'd like my soul to die in my body, so that it at least could rest in the unconsciousness of idiocy or madness. My pride is the only pillar that sustains me. Sometimes I bless it for being great and strong, and other times I reproach it for insatiably monopolizing all the strength of my body and spirit. (beginning of chapter 7)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...again I wonder with anxiety and fear what great and terrible thing is this love that always awaits us, and stalks us everywhere with open claws. Oh! Love! Love! Why ask the swaying of the hammock? I have already felt it! It is this subterranean and silent tragedy that everyone treats with indifference, as one might ignore the macabre torment of someone buried alive. Why deceive myself? I have experienced it! It is a live coal, always sizzling and glowing; it is this painful burn that makes me feel the awful agony of the flesh, and makes me think with anxiety and infinite nostalgia about the sweet silence of the void! (chapter 7)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I can no longer resist the absolute necessity that I feel of expressing the following aphorism, whose truth overflows from my soul: "Love does not exist." Yes, unhappily, love, flowery love, exalted love is--nothing! Like so many other pious lies, its dazzling lustre is only the lustre of a mirage that glows from afar in this arid desert of our lives. Since I have discovered this cruel truth, I profoundly despise human existence, and I would prefer a thousand and one times over to have been born a rock, a lake, or a chasm-all things which, being eternal, immobile, and grandiose, have the advantage of never getting bored and of not having the ridiculous pretension of aspiring to love, which as I have already said, is no more than a utopia, an Eldorado, and a will-o'-the-wisp. (chapter 2)”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh! Highest gratification of souls that intangibly yield themselves, having never felt the impure touch of the body! Oh! Perverse voluptuousness, profound voluptuousness of bodies destined to writhe with pretense in the repugnance of kisses that do not touch the soul! Oh! The sublime lie of silent suffering! Sacrifice! Object of my affection! Ruler that desires my whole life for yourself! At this august hour of acute awareness, with my eyes fixed on the dead pristine dress lying on my little chair, I have tried to decipher the mysteries that rule my destiny, and I only see your name arise, floating in the symbolic foam of lace. Your name! Your name is Sacrifice! Oh, but wait, wait, for now, in ecstacy, enlightened by your name, on the symbolic froth of lace, at last I am reading the beauty of my destiny.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...like María Eugenia Alonso the sensitive and the temperamental (women and artists) have two "I's" within our souls, different and contradictory and seldom in accord: the one that speaks through the mouth of reason and the one motivated by reasons reason doesn't know. The first is geometric, logical and ruled by the ego and leads to success and when it prevails, the world judges us to be intelligent. The other is mad, sublimely mad, with the madness of great sacrifice and outlandish generosities, the mysterious "unknown guest" who sows disorder, mocks our wise tutor the ego, and buries our lives, like a gray stone stuck to a large building of societies constantly undergoing construction.”
Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source