“Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.”

After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.

Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.

If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.

The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.

We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.

Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.

Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.

You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery, the joy and the depth.

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

At my age, there is really only one big surprise left, and I’d just as soon leave it a mystery.

I don’t want people to know what is true all the time and that’s what keeps the mystery.

Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don’t miss it.