Quotes by Spanish authors

See the complete list of authors from Spain

"To try to correct imbalances with trade restrictions is a grave error"

Rodrigo Rato, Politician

"And it's also producing a growth in debt to the United States that will weight very heavily in a country that has to address issues like having more old people to be covered by Social Security or by pension in the future"

Rodrigo Rato, Politician

"The priests are debarred from female society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"Thus they have an idol that they petition for victory in war; another for success in their labors; and so for everything in which they seek or desire prosperity, they have their idols, which they honor and serve"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"The award is important in order to bring people to the movie theater. That's the only principle meaning of any award"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I enjoy my job as long as I can create a character, otherwise it's boring"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I don't know how to drive a car"

Javier Bardem, Actor

Juan Ramon Jimenez

"Literature is a state of culture, poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture"

Juan Ramon Jimenez, Poet

Juan Ramon Jimenez

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way"

Juan Ramon Jimenez, Poet

"We believe that the Federal Reserve has to carry on with a progressive increase in interest rates as a consequence of the American economy"

Rodrigo Rato, Politician

"There is not an alternative to the US as the engine for growth"

Rodrigo Rato, Politician

"Most cases, I would say, in a huge amount of cases, countries that have worked with us and have used our financial facilities have come out quick... more quickly and in a better shape from a crisis than would have come out otherwise"

Rodrigo Rato, Politician

"There are fully forty towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal tower of the church at Seville"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"There are apothecaries' shops, where prepared medicines, liquids, ointments, and plasters are sold; barbers' shops, where they wash and shave the head; and restaurateurs, that furnish food and drink at a certain price"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"The meals were served in a large hall, in which Moctezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats and kept very clean"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"The city is as large as Seville or Cordova; its streets, I speak of the principal ones, are very wide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are half land and half water, and are navigated by canoes"

Hernando Cortes, Leader

"We actors always say how difficult and physically demanding a role was. But give me a break, it's only a movie"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"My truth - what I believe - is that there are no answers here and, if you are looking for answers, you'd better choose the question carefully"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"But don't call me an actor. I'm just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don't say that what I am doing is art"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"Really, I don't see this heart-throb thing at all"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"My concern is to continue respecting my work as I've done since I began as an actor and I could only do that if I'm strong enough to keep on doing what I think best in an artistic way"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I think we are living in selfish times. I'm the first one to say that I'm the most selfish. We live in the so-called 'first world,' and we may be first in a lot of things like technology, but we are behind in empathy"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I don't really care where movies come from as long as they're worth making"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"There is no greater glory than love, nor any great punishment than jealously"

Lope de Vega, Playwright

"I've always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I will work with a director who has good material because at the end of the day, that's what counts"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I want to act because I don't know how to do anything else"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"When I write now I do not invent situation, characters, or actions, but rather structures and discursive forms, textual groupings which are combined according to secret affinities among themselves, as in architecture or the plastic arts"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"For a country is not merely a piece of earth; it is, above all, a compendium of social, cultural, and historical factors which begin to acquire sense and order through the process of writing"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"Harmony is pure love, for love is a concerto"

Lope de Vega, Playwright

"We live in the moment now where this whole movie business is crazy"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"I was emotionally and physically punched in the stomach. This is not a place where you go and deliver the lines and then you come back. It's kind of a life-changing experience. But it can't get better than this for any actor - this is like an opera"

Javier Bardem, Actor

"The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"Marks of Identity is, among other things, the expression of the process of alienation in a contemporary intellectual with respect to his own country"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates, the writer functions totally in unison with society, and expresses society's feelings, beliefs, and hopes in perfect harmony"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

"And it is because a series of elements in Spanish life which operate today the same way as they did in the times of Blanco White made obvious my relationship with him, based on a similarity in Spain's condition"

Juan Goytisolo, Poet

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