“Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.”

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.

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?

Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.

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.

We made a mess of this love, you and I. Forever the most beautiful disaster.

Don’t be afraid of failure & that’s a dam beautiful thing.

I wish to meet you when you madly dance in the rain, sipping on whiskey, feeling every drop touching your beautiful face.

We judge on the basis of what somebody looks like, skin color, whether we think they’re beautiful or not. That space on the Internet allows you to converse with somebody with none of those things involved.

The heart is a beautiful garden that needs to be regularly cleaned of weeds, i.e. forgiving those who made you angry. This makes room for really good things.

I know how our fingers would interlace. Like this and that. Delicate yet determined. As porcelain scales in serene movements. Iridescent in ways our thoughts could not convey. How beautifully we are made in the ways we trace out along soft skins the words that linger within us.

Life is an adventure, it can be hard but it can also be one of the most beautiful experiences imaginable.

I want someone to kiss my scars and tell me I’m beautiful still, that even after my scars I’m worthy to be loved and seen, i want someone to tell me that warriors do not come clean.