Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language. He also wrote in and translated from English and French...
NationalityPortuguese
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth13 June 1888
CityLisbon, Portugal
CountryPortugal
I crave time in all its duration, and I want to be myself unconditionally.
To narrate is to create, for living is just being lived.
I come closer to my desk as to a bulwark against life.
At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that's like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.
Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.
Whether or not they exist we are slaves to our gods.
If I had written King Lear, I would regret it all my life afterwards. Because that work is so big, that its defects show as huge, its monstrous defects, things even minimal in between some scenes and their possible perfection. It's not the sun with spots; it's a broken greek statue.
I never was but an isolated bon vivant, which is absurd; or a mystic bon vivant, which is an impossible thing.