"Another of Raquel's letters included a few lines that continue to resonate with me. She wrote: "You can't imagine, my brother, how much I've thought of our children. In all they have yet to touch, create and do. There is space, I say this from my heart, to reconstruct the world." Today Raquel is long gone, and I am thinking not of our children or grandchildren but of my two young great-grandchildren. Is there still space to reconstruct the world? It doesn't feel like it. And yet I believe that the spirit that palpitates in Raquel's work urges that reconstruction even more now than it did then. And that poetry and art remain our best resistance to the horrors that besiege us."

"Raquel was also clearly accustomed to being a lone woman among men. But she operated on a different strata, not because of her gender but because her lifestyle and goals situated her beyond all social constraints. When she read her work, the air turned electric. We listened in awe."

"I remember her as both compact and graceful, shorter than me but with contagious energy. She had long dark hair and eyes that seemed backlit by a magical knowing. Having traveled from Peru, she brought with her its tenuous Andean air and wailing reed pipes. Vivacious and determined, she filled a room with vibrant power. Her poetry captivated us all."

"Raquel Jodorowsky's poems, in form as well as content, have had an enduring impact."

"Generally, a revolution isn't enough. For me, it's changing one chaos for another. The important thing is to know that which from this moment is to be constructed."

"Long live the thieves! They don't make a lie of their lives in this wormy society. They are what they are. Sincere in their disgrace. Working with them I've learnt the importance of loyalty and honor."

"I'm writing a prologue for the Ajy Tojen like nothing ever read in literature. (1964)"

"The Nadaistas are a miracle. In many ways they are fighters. I've never seen a whole nation living the exaltation of poetry as if it were a political party. After my reading, I tried to save myself from the Cali effusion and I retreated to my dark room in the hotel. Success frightened me. Or the noise of the crowds. (1964)"

"Another day the poor inhabitants lift themselves from the ruins and right there begin to reconstruct the roads; children without shoes, but with joy on their shoulders, return to carry the future. (September 1963)"

"I was four thousand feet high. And more. In the heart of stone of the Andes. The open mouth of the earth surprised me, with its deep color. Like one of her fruits, the coffee bean...A difficult earth, only a bit of earth stretched over the sleeping eye of a volcano. One day she awakes, yawns and swallows an entire village with its men, its screams and its trees. (September 1963)"

"There is space, I say this from my heart, to reconstruct the world. (September 1963)"

"We think of these people as primitive, uneducated, crude. But bringing myself a bit closer to their lives, I felt with emotion their capacity for kindness which they radiate, because they contain it, towards any stranger. Every civilized-intelligent person, whom I have known, tends towards evil, coldness, distrust of friend. Every civilized-intelligent person, seated one step above the rest, perhaps in order to spit down on them and shout; "because I am intelligent" -with the right to everything, above everyone. I've come to the conclusion, after briefly touching these high villages without aspirations, that intelligence is not one of the human values I respect. It's inhuman. Especially since those gifted with super doses of cerebral juice can't seem to live in peace with each other. They isolate themselves and retreat from a reality they insist on showing their back. There I found men who escape all definition. Perhaps "pure" is the poor word best fitting. I feel not that "I've arrived" in a marvelous world, but that "I've left" the inclement garbage of the city. (1963)"

"Life itself returns over destruction, putting out death. (1963)"

"I can climb to the top story of the highest poem and throw myself into the vacuum of a life."

"We are born old how life descends and one gets younger."

"I'm just a worm with metaphysical necessities wanting to rise but lacking sun"

"If you don't like this world we'll change it with kisses"

"Ay, those who can't shed light nor let others shed light."

"if you feed us the bread of love we will all grow stronger with fraternity with pity with serenity,"

"100 painters engraving their dreams on skin"

"I learned to dream on the roof of the house"

"Alone in my room, spinning with the whole world in my head from the day I was born."

"Love, love, love, LOVE where do you hide forever? In the deep. But so deep in ourselves."

"In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances."

"I think that living only from writing is a privilege, in economic terms, that only some writers have achieved and to which, probably, all authors aspire: a difficult goal that is not impossible."

"For a writer, life must be the focus that death illuminates daily."

"It is often said that children do not read. Well, I'd say that if adults don't start reading, it's not fair to accuse little ones of not reading. They must see us with a book in our hands."

"Why walk with half measures, animals know much more than people, above all because they feel more freely than most of these and, therefore, as Kafka says, they are possessors of all the knowledge about this life. They are just too humble to show it off."

"The memory is like the wind, sometimes warm, gentle and prone to a smile, sometimes violent, merciless and unwelcome. The memory looks like the wind, period, and that explains why the wind can bring with it the memory."

"No one said this would be easy (...) Writing is not. Do not forget that the pen is the tool, yes, but art must be born from you, from your readings..."

"It's payday, reason enough for customers to cram every space in the venue looking for a beer. Today there is money ergo there is drink. Bibere ergosum."

"God? Christ. The Virgin. This Guadalajara is so rich in cathedrals, so rich in appearances, that I am sure that these are the true foundations of the city and its misfortune: the rain washes away the sin of this world..."

"That's the writer's game: everything is about us."

"The closest thing to purgatory is a government agency, only the first does not exist and the second is very real."

"In my words, the story is a short drink, but capable of startling you for hours, something like a little shot of tequila in the middle of a game that we have voluntarily joined."

"Who today asks your poem where the country is going?"

"Literary art feeds on the fragility of life."

"Every literary work is a political act—not in the pamphleteering sense, which has done so much harm to art, but in that intimate—and sometimes devastating—way in which a phrase, an image, a character can shake the reader enough to make them doubt their own certainties."

"The short story is [...] a coup de théâtre, aimed directly at the reader."

"Telling stories from the margins is a symbolic act of justice."

"Literature is a political act, not driven by utility, but by the essence of being human."

"Truth does not justify gratuitous cruelty."

"I do physics in order to earn my living, and I do poetry in order to keep alive."

"«Silence is the space that has yet to be resolved where the dynamics of thinking and deciding»."

"«There are many ways to practice and make art. There are also various ways to express, such as comedy, sculpture, music, painting etc. Dimensions can be immense even in such small spaces as the head of a pin»."

""A child who does not renounce dreaming, the same as living with the adult life struggling to pieces and holds them with claws that poetry is capable of to find the magnitude of resources”."

""Cruz Vargas keeps his flat and surreal poetic style, characterized by simple language instrumentalized to sublime the love, the life and the nature"."

"As long as we sing his songs, As long as his courage can inspire us to greater courage Victor Jara will never die."

"Victor Jara of Chile Lived like a shooting star He fought for the people of Chile With his songs and his guitar His hands were gentle, his hands were strong"

"The junta broke the fingers on Victor Jara’s hands They said to the gentle poet “play your guitar now if you can” Victor started singing but they brought his body down You can kill that man but not his song When it’s sung the whole world round If you can sing for freedom I can too"