Quotes from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Pablo Neruda ·  70 pages

Rating: (39.7K votes)


“I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“Tonight I can write the saddest lines
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“Then love knew it was called love.
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,
suddenly your heart showed me my way”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“It was at that age
that poetry came in search of me.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair



“Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“وفي عينيك الحزينتين يبدأ وطن الحلم.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“مثل البحر، مثل الزمن. فيكِ غَرِقَ كل شيء!”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair



“Every day you play with the light of the universe.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“sometimes i get up at dawn, and even my soul is wet.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“كم هو قصيرٌ الحب، وكم هو طويلٌ النسيان”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair



“كنتُ أتذكّرك وروحي تضيق
بهذا الحزن الذي تعرفين.
أين كنتِ آنئذٍ؟
بين أيّ أناس؟
أيّة كلمات كنتِ تقولين؟
لماذا يداهمُني كل هذا الحب
عندما أشعر بالحزن، وأَشعرُ بكِ بعيدة؟”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“تعجبينني حين تصمتين وأنت كالبعيدة.
وأنتِ كأنك تئنّين، فراشة ترفّّ.
وتَسمعينني من بعيد، وصوتي لا يصل إليكِ.

دعيني أصمت مع صمتك.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“Entre los labios y la voz, algo se va muriendo.
Algo con alas de pájaro, algo de angustia y de olvido”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“نحن، اللذَيْن كنّا آنذاك، لم نعد كما كُنّا”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair



“The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer.

The clouds travel like white handkerchiefs of goodbye,
the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands.

The numberless heart of the wind
beating above our loving silence.

Orchestral and divine, resounding among the trees
like a language full of wars and songs.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“أُحِبُّ ما ليس عندي. كم أنتِ بعيدة.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“أنا اليائسُ، الكلمةُ بلا أصداء،
الذي فقد كل شيء، وكان لديه كل شيء.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“لأنّي في ليالٍ مثل هذه أخذتها بين ذراعيّ،
روحي ليست راضيةً بأنّي أضعتُها.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

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

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair



“وعصافيرُ كانت تنامُ في روحِك
أيقظتُها، وكم فرّتْ وهاجرتْ.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


“أستطيع أن أكتب الأشعار الأكثر حزناً هذه الليلة.”
― Pablo Neruda, quote from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair


About the author

Pablo Neruda
Born place: in Parral, Chile
Born date July 12, 1904
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Hidden, there,
behind the face
of a beautiful boy,
I see you.

The real you.”
― Lisa Schroeder, quote from The Day Before


“the grand Cross of Lothair, an ornate tenth-century golden cross richly encrusted with jewels and still being used to lead sacred processions like the one he had attended. But the strange thing was that a magnificent cameo of the Emperor Augustus with a crown and holding the royal Roman eagle scepter, reportedly carved during the time of Christ, graced the center of this holy cross. When he asked his Jesuit superior about the riddle of a Roman emperor honored in this way, the response had shocked and confused him. "The cameo of Augustus on the cross was without doubt meant to indicate that the emperor was the earthly representative of the almighty power of God.”
― Kenneth Atchity, quote from The Messiah Matrix


“We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of a longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy.”
― John Piper, quote from The Passion of Jesus Christ


“All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side. To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology.”
― Miroslav Volf, quote from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation


“There's no paradise in love! It's--you're thinking in the wrong way. Love--the sort you're asking me for--is of the earth, earthy. Beautiful, maybe--sometimes it be like a gold mine that one digs into. But of the earth--earthy. Tis all wrong to speak of paradise. Love may be the nearest human beings can get--but it is still outside the gates--for it is human--easily lost--animal in the way it work, though more, much more than animal. Oftentimes it--uplifts, transports...but--but it should not be mistaken. It is a--a terrible mistake to pretend it is something quite different.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans


Interesting books

Silence
(24.5K)
Silence
by Natasha Preston
Prelude to Foundation
(50.3K)
Prelude to Foundatio...
by Isaac Asimov
The Living
(2.4K)
The Living
by Annie Dillard
Sailing to Sarantium
(10.9K)
Sailing to Sarantium
by Guy Gavriel Kay
Saint
(11.3K)
Saint
by Ted Dekker
On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God
(44.1K)
On the Bright Side,...
by Louise Rennison

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.