“So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.”

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others.

I do not like detached creation. Neither can I conceive of the mind as detached from itself. Each of my works, each diagram of myself, each glacial flowering of my inmost soul dribbles over me.

I abandon myself to the fever of dreams, in search for new laws.

Squander your riches far from this unfeeling body to which no season, either spiritual or sensual, makes any difference.

No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.

Admittedly or not, conscious or unconscious, the poetic state, a transcendent experience of life, is what the public is fundamentally seeking through love, crime, drugs, war, or insurrection.

I see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.

Tragedy on the stage is no longer enough for me, I shall bring it into my own life.

The idea of a detached art, of poetry as a charm which exists only to distract our leisure, is a decadent idea and an unmistakable symptom of our power to castrate.

Cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.

There is nothing like an insane asylum for gently incubating death.

I call for actors burning at the stakes, laughing at the flames.

I cannot conceive any work of art as having a separate existence from life itself.

If our life lacks a constant magic it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in consideration of their imagined form and meaning, instead of being impelled by their force.

In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds.

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.

I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night.

The societies of consumption and squandering of material resources are incompatible with the idea of economic growth and a clean planet.

Cuba has the cleanest and most-educated prostitutes in the world.

Sometimes the Lord gives us a free sample of religious experience, but for more, we must pay a price with the currency of sincere dedication to the process of cleansing.

Surrender happens by Grace. All we’re doing is cleaning up the room so when Surrender walks in, He can sit down.

The dirty wax of egotism accumulated in the heart prevents us from clearly hearing the Lord’s voice within. A guru, with the stick of knowledge, cleans our hearts. It’s really ugly to see what may come out, but by following patiently, we keep cleaning.

It’s so beautiful at this hour. The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won’t be awake for another five hours, but I can’t help feeling that we’re sharing this clear and beautiful morning.

Food sacred to the manes or to the gods must be given to a man distinguished by sacred knowledge, for hands, smeared with blood, cannot be cleansed with blood.