“After you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.”

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.

Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.

Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.

I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.

It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.

Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.

You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.

When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.

Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.

The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.

The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

Fool! Don’t you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you.

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.

Whether wine is a nourishment, medicine or poison is a matter of dosage.

The dose makes the poison.

All things are poisons. It is simply the dose that distinguishes between a poison and a remedy.

Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose.

The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.

All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.