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

We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

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 life of the dead is set in the memory of the living.

If the truth shall kill them, let them die.

Death is the easiest of all things after it, and the hardest of all things before it.

A man may hate cruelty and lies, but if he’s never given an opportunity to show what he’s made of, no one will remember him when he dies.

Cursed is the man who dies, but the evil done by him survives.

For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.

Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.

Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.