“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.”

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

Poetry is a religion with no hope.

Art is science in the flesh.

Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.

And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.

Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.

We live in a world that is like art painted by the light in so many colors.

However much you are read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant.

I’m gonna write from personal experience, from emotion, from whatever the hell I’m feeling that day.

Indulging in the pleasures of creation.

Well, write poetry, for God’s sake, it’s the only thing that matters.

Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.

My bedroom is my sanctuary. It’s like a refuge, and it’s where I do a fair amount of designing – at least conceptually, if not literally.

All of the young people – the artsy people, people who get overlooked because they’re weird or they don’t have hype around them – need to get some shine.