110+ Federico Garcia Lorca Quotes (Romantic, Tragic And Surreal)

Federico Garcia Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director from the early 20th century. He is considered one of the greatest Spanish poets of all time, and his works often focused on the themes of love, death, and social injustice. He was executed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and his death has become a symbol of the tragic loss of life during that time.

Top 10 Federico Garcia Lorca Quotes

1. To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
2. The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world.
3. I've often lost myself, in order to find the burn that keeps everything awake
4. Every step we take on earth brings us to a new world.
5. Love is the kiss in the quiet nest while the leaves are trembling, mirrored in the water.
6. The day hunger disappears, the world will see the greatest spiritual explosion humanity has ever seen.
7. Besides black art, there is only automation and mechanization.
8. I know there is no straight road No straight road in this world Only a giant labyrinth Of intersecting crossroads
9. The only things that the United States has given to the world are skyscrapers, jazz, and cocktails. That is all. And in Cuba, in our America, they make much better cocktails.
10. There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them.

Federico Garcia Lorca Image Quotes

The day we stop resisting our instincts, we'll have learned how to live. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca Short Quotes

• In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.
• The day we stop resisting our instincts, we'll have learned how to live.
• In our eyes the roads are endless. Two are crossroads of the shadow.
• My poetry is a game. My life is a game. But I am not a game.
• Today in my heart a vague trembling of stars and all roses are as white as my pain.
• A poet must be a professor of the five senses and must open doors among them.
• If blue is dream what then innocence? What awaits the heart if Love bears no arrows?
• Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.
• My head is full of fire and grief and my tongue runs wild, pierced with shards of glass.
• To see you naked is to recall the Earth.

Federico Garcia Lorca Famous Quotes And Sayings

The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several million dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea. — Federico Garcia Lorca

With their souls of patent leather, they come down the road. Hunched and nocturnal, where they breathe they impose, silence of dark rubber, and fear of fine sand. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The duende....Where is the duende? Through the empty archway a wind of the spirit enters, blowing insistently over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents: a wind with the odour of a child's saliva, crushed grass, and medusa's veil, announcing the endless baptism of freshly created things. — Federico Garcia Lorca

There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I put my head out of my window and see how much the wind’s knife wants to slice it off. On this unseen guillotine, I’ve placed the eyeless head of all my desires. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I'll always be happy if they'd leave me alone in that delightful and unknown furthest corner, apart from struggles, putrefactions and nonsense; the ultimate corner of sugar and toast, where the mermaids catch the branches of the willows and the heart opens to a flute's sharpness. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Damned, damned be the rich! May not even their fingernails be left!... I'm sure that they are going to Hell head-first. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The gitano is the most distinguished, profound and aristocratic element in my country, the one that most represents its Way of being and best preserves the fire, the blood and the alphabet of Andalusian and universal truth. — Federico Garcia Lorca

What's the furthest corner? Because that's where I want to be, alone with the only thing that I love. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Seville is a tower full of fine archers.... Under the arch of the sky, across the clear plain, she shoots the constant arrow of her river. — Federico Garcia Lorca

At five in the afternoon. It was exactly five in the afternoon. A boy brought the white sheet at five in the afternoon. A frail of lime ready prepared at five in the afternoon. The rest was death, and death alone — Federico Garcia Lorca

The moon carries the masks of meningitis into bedrooms, fills the wombs of pregnant women with cold water and, as soon as I'm not careful, throws handfuls of grass on my shoulders. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The night below. We two. Crystal of pain. You wept over great distances. My ache was a clutch of agonies over your sickly heart of sand. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Oh honey, there's nothing new on this earth when it comes to what men and women do in the dark. First love is when you learn. So you've learned that love can open you up like spring sun on a wee primrose. Good. Remember that. You know how to love. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Old women can see through walls. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The theater has to impose itself on the public, and not the public on the theater... The word "Art" should be written everywhere, in the auditorium and in the dressing rooms, before the word "Business" gets written there. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Everyone understands the pain that accompanies death, but genuine pain doesn't live in the spirit, nor in the air, nor in our lives, nor on these terraces of billowing smoke. The genuine pain that keeps everything awake is a tiny, infinite burn on the innocent eyes of other systems. — Federico Garcia Lorca

At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Green how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. — Federico Garcia Lorca

We're all like the little sailor. From the harbors we hear the strains of accordions and the murky soapy noises of the docks, from the mountains we receive the dish of silence that the shepherds eat, but we don't hear more than our own distances. And what distances without end and without doors and without mountains! — Federico Garcia Lorca

Those who are afraid of death will carry it on their shoulders. — Federico Garcia Lorca

New York is a meeting place for every race in the world, but the Chinese, Armenians, Russians, and Germans remain foreigners. So does everyone except the blacks. There is no doubt but that the blacks exercise great influence in North America, and, no matter what anyone says, they are the most delicate, spiritual element in that world. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Just as the light and weightless vegetation of saltpeter floats over the old walls of houses as soon as the owner gets careless, so the literary vocation springs up in you. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I'm afraid to be on this shore a trunk without limbs, and what I most regret is not to have flower, pulp, or clay for the worm of my suffering. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Pero yo ya no soy yo Ni mi casa es ya mi casa. But now I am no longer I, nor is my house any longer my house. — Federico Garcia Lorca

In the garden I will die. In the rosebush they will kill me. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The dancer's trembling heart must bring everything into harmony, from the tips of her shoes to the flutter of her eyelashes, from the ruffles of her dress to the incessant play of her fingers. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verde ramas. Green I love you green. Green Wind. Green branches. — Federico Garcia Lorca

While the poet wrestles with the horses on his brain and the sculptor wounds his eyes on the hard spark of alabaster, the dancer battles the air around her, air that threatens at any moment to destroy her harmony or to open huge open empty spaces where her rhythm will be annihilated. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. This is what comes of a Protestant morality, that I, as a (thank God) typical Spaniard, found unnerving. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Death, lonely death, Beneath the withered leaves. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I have often lost myself in the sea, ears full of newly cut flowers, tongue full of love and agony. — Federico Garcia Lorca

A dead man in Spain is more alive than a dead man anywhere in the world. — Federico Garcia Lorca

In each thing there is an insinuation of death. Stillness, silence, serenity are all apprenticeships. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Relish the fresh landscape of my wound, break rushes and delicate rivulets, drink blood poured on honeyed thigh. — Federico Garcia Lorca

What matters most has an ultimate metallic quality of death. The chasuble and the wagon wheel, the razor and the prickly beards of shepherds, the bare moon, a fly, humid cupboards, rubble piles, the images of saints covered in lace, quicklime, and the wounding edges of the rooflines and watchtowers. — Federico Garcia Lorca

My God, I have come with the seeds of questions. I planted them, and they never flowered. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Green how I love you green. Green wind. Green boughs. The ship on the sea And the horse on the mountain. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of being without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? Day goes round and round me. The night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without my reflection. And then let me dream that ants and thistledown are my leaves and my parrots. — Federico Garcia Lorca

But hurry, let's entwine ourselves as one, our mouth broken, our soul bitten by love, so time discovers us safely destroyed. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The world is a shoulder of dark meat (black flesh of an old mule). And the light is on the other side. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The bride, the white bride today a maiden, tomorrow a wife. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar y el caballo en la montaña. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Little black horse. Where are you taking your dead rider? — Federico Garcia Lorca

Devoutly the teachers point out huge fumigated domes; but beneath the statues there's no love, no love beneath the eyes set in crystal. Love is there, in flesh ripped by thirst, in the tiny hut struggling against the flood; love is there, in ditches where snakes of hunger wrestle, in the sad sea that rocks dead gulls, and in the darkest stinging kiss under pillows. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Adam & Eve. The serpent cracked the mirror in a thousand pieces, & the apple was his rock. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The snow is falling on the deserted field of my life, and my hopes, which roam far, are afraid of becoming frozen or lost. — Federico Garcia Lorca

What you wouldn't have suspected lives & trembles in the air. Those treasures of the day you keep just out of reach. These come & go in truckloads but no one stops to see them. — Federico Garcia Lorca

As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Ever since I got married I've been thinking night and day about whose fault it was, and every time I think about it, out comes a new fault to eat up the old one; but always there's a fault left. — Federico Garcia Lorca

If I told you the whole story it would never end...What's happened to me has happened to a thousand woman. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The groom is like a flower of gold. When he walks, blossoms at his feet unfold. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Even money, which shines so much, spits sometimes. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The one thing life has taught me is that most people spend their lives bottled up inside their houses doing the things they hate. — Federico Garcia Lorca

...I am the immense shadow of my tears — Federico Garcia Lorca

My tongue is pierced with glass. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I'm satisfied. I am progressively making my life and my name in the surest and purest manner. If I catch on in the theater, as I think I will, all the doors will gladly open wide for me. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The Little Mute Boy The little boy was looking for his voice. (The king of the crickets had it.) In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. I do not want it for speaking with; I will make a ring of it so that he may wear my silence on his little finger In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. (The captive voice, far away, put on a cricket's clothes.) Translated by William S. Merwin — Federico Garcia Lorca

I'm hurt, hurt and humiliated beyond endurance, seeing the wheat ripening, the fountains never ceasing to give water, the sheep bearing hundreds of lambs, the she-dogs, until it seems the whole country rises to show me its tender sleeping young while I feel two hammer-blows here instead of the mouth of my child. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Everything's a fan. Brother, open up your arms. God is the pivot. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Hour of Stars (1920) The round silence of night, one note on the stave of the infinite. Ripe with lost poems, I step naked into the street. The blackness riddled by the singing of crickets: sound, that dead will-o'-the-wisp, that musical light perceived by the spirit. A thousand butterfly skeletons sleep within my walls. A wild crowd of young breezes over the river. — Federico Garcia Lorca

What shall I say about poetry? What shall I say about those clouds, or about the sky? Look; look at them; look at it! And nothing more. Don't you understand anything about poetry? Leave that to the critics and the professors. For neither you, nor I, nor any poet knows what poetry is. — Federico Garcia Lorca

All one's personality is embedded in gloves and hats after they've been good and used. Show me a glove and I'll tell you the character of its owner. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes the recent stock-market crash, where they lost several million dollars, a rabble of dead money that went sliding off into the sea. Never as then, amid suicides, hysteria, and groups of fainting people, have I felt the sensation of real death, death without hope, death that is nothing but rottenness, for the spectacle was terrifying but devoid of greatness... I felt something like a divine urge to bombard that whole canyon of shadow, where ambulances collected suicides whose hands were full of rings. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Hail, mute devil! You are the most intense animal. An eternal mystic of the fleshly inferno. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair — Federico Garcia Lorca

The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink - and in drinking understand themselves. — Federico Garcia Lorca

At the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Only mystery allows us to live, only mystery. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The wounds were burning like suns at five in the afternoon, and the crowd broke the windows At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon! — Federico Garcia Lorca

Understand one single day fully, so you can love every night. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Men like to pleasure us, girl. They like to undo our plaits and give us water to drink from their own mouths. That's what makes the world go round. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The mirror is the mother dew, the book of desiccated twilights, echo become flesh. — Federico Garcia Lorca

New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I sing your restless longing for the statue, your fear of the feelings that await you in the street. I sing the small sea siren who sings to you, riding her bicycle of corals and conches. But above all I sing a common thought that joins us in the dark and golden hours. The light that blinds our eyes is not art. Rather it is love, friendship, crossed swords. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Variación / Variations El remanso de aire bajo la rama del eco. El remanso del agua bajo fronda de luceros. El remanso de tu boca bajo espesura de besos. * The still waters of the air under the bough of the echo. The still waters of the water under a frond of stars. The still waters of your mouth under a thicket of kisses. Translated from the Spanish by Lysander Kemp — Federico Garcia Lorca

Life is laughter amid a rosary of death. — Federico Garcia Lorca

We're all curious about what might hurt us. — Federico Garcia Lorca

The important thing in life is to let the years carry us along. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Moon like a large stainedglass window that breaks on the ocean. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Death laid its eggs in the wound — Federico Garcia Lorca

Ditty of First Desire In the green morning I wanted to be a heart. A heart. And in the ripe evening I wanted to be a nightingale. A nightingale. (Soul, turn orange-colored. Soul, turn the color of love.) In the vivid morning I wanted to be myself. A heart. And at the evening's end I wanted to be my voice. A nightingale. Soul, turn orange-colored. Soul, turn the color of love. — Federico Garcia Lorca

A nation that does not support and encourage its theater is - if not dead - dying; just as a theater that does not capture with laughter and tears the social and historical pulse, the drama of its people, the genuine color of the spiritual and natural landscape, has no right to call itself theater; but only a place for amusement. — Federico Garcia Lorca

I want to be a poet, from head to toe, living and dying by poetry. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Death, vicious death, Leave a green branch for love. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Angel and Muse approach from without; the Angel sheds light and the Muse gives form (Hesiod learned of them). Gold leaf or chiton-folds: the poet finds his models in his laurel coppice. But the Duende, on the other hand, must come to life in the nethermost recesses of the blood. — Federico Garcia Lorca

Life Lessons by Federico Garcia Lorca

1. Federico Garcia Lorca teaches us to embrace our emotions and find beauty in the natural world, encouraging us to be passionate and creative in our lives.
2. He also encourages us to be open to new experiences and to be unafraid of the unknown.
3. Finally, he reminds us to be compassionate and understanding of others, no matter their differences.