# Julio Cortázar's most beautiful lines

Lines from Hopscotch, Cronopios and Famas and other texts by Cortázar, each with the work it comes from. Only verified quotes: many lines attributed to him online aren't his.

- 23 votes · 11 items
- May 13, 2022 · rosariobrujula
- https://even.best/en/l/1386/julio-cortazar-s-most-beautiful-lines

## Top 11

1. **We walked without looking for each other, but knowing we walked to find each other.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Hopscotch (1963), chapter 1.
2. **Would I find La Maga?** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — The opening line of Hopscotch (1963).
3. **As if one could choose in love, as if it weren't a lightning bolt that splits your bones…** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Hopscotch, on what most people call love.
4. **I touch your mouth, with one finger I touch the edge of your mouth…** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Hopscotch, chapter 7, one of the most-read love passages in Spanish literature.
5. **Man is the animal who asks. The day we truly know how to ask, there will be dialogue.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Hopscotch (1963).
6. **When they give you a watch they give you a tiny flowering hell, a chain of roses, a dungeon of air.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — «Preamble to the Instructions on How to Wind a Watch», Cronopios and Famas (1962).
7. **Average duration of crying, three minutes.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — The punchline of «Instructions on How to Cry» (1962).
8. **What I like about your mouth is the tongue. / What I like about your tongue is the word.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — From the poem «What I like about your body…», collected in Papeles inesperados.
9. **…and I feel you tremble against me like a moon in the water.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The end of chapter 7 of Hopscotch.
10. **What I think of Mafalda doesn't matter. What matters is what Mafalda thinks of me.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Written for Quino's «10 años con Mafalda».
11. **To cry, direct your imagination toward yourself…** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — «Instructions on How to Cry», Cronopios and Famas (1962).

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.