Quotes by Pablo Neruda

“A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesnt play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.”

“And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.”

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”

“Quiero hacer contigoLo que primavera hace con los cerazos”

“Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?”

“Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.”

“I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

“I dont love you as if you were a rose of salt, topazor arrow of carnations that propagate fire:I love you as one loves certain dark things,secretly, between the shadow and the soul.”

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Well, nowIf little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving youLittle by littleIf suddenly you forget meDo not look for meFor I shall already have forgotten youIf you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my lifeAnd you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have rootsRememberThat on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my armsAnd my roots will set off to seek another land

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Tonight I can write the saddest linesI loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

As if you were on fire from within.The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

If You Forget MeI want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine.

You are like nobody since I love you.

Love.Because of you, in gardens of blossomingFlowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.I have forgotten your face, I no longerRemember your hands; how did your lipsFeel on mine?Because of you, I love the white statuesDrowsing in the parks, the white statues thatHave neither voice nor sight.I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;I have forgotten your eyes.Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound toMy vague memory of you. I live with painThat is like a wound; if you touch me, you willMake to me an irreperable harm.Your caresses enfold me, like climbingVines on melancholy walls.I have forgotten your love, yet I seem toGlimpse you in every window.Because of you, the heady perfumes ofSummer pain me; because of you, I againSeek out the signs that precipitate desires:Shooting stars, falling objects.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: The night is full of stars, and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance. The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights like this, I held her in my arms. I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her. How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. To think I dont have her. To feel that Ive lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. What does it matter that my love couldnt keep her. The night is full of stars and she is not with me. Thats all. Far away, someone sings. Far away. My soul is lost without her. As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her. My heart searches for her and she is not with me. The same night that whitens the same trees. We, we who were, we are the same no longer. I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her. My voice searched the wind to touch her ear. Someone elses. She will be someone elses. As she once belonged to my kisses. Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her. Love is so short and oblivion so long. Because on nights like this I held her in my arms, my soul is lost without her. Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her.