It was the voice of mad seas, roaring immense,/ That shattered your infant breast, too soft, too human.
Arthur RimbaudWeakness or strength: you exist, that is strength. You don't know where you are going or why you are going, go in everywhere, answer everyone. No one will kill you, any more than if you were a corpse.
Arthur RimbaudTrue alchemy lies in this formula: โYour memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulseโ.
Arthur RimbaudFor a long time I found the celebrities of modern painting and poetry ridiculous. I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks backcloths, inn-signs, cheap colored prints; unfashionable literature, church Latin, pornographic books badly spelt, grandmothers novels, fairy stories, little books for children, old operas, empty refrains, simple rhythms.
Arthur Rimbaud...I is another. If the brass wakes the trumpet, itโs not its fault. Thatโs obvious to me: I witness the unfolding of my own thought: I watch it, I hear it: I make a stroke with the bow: the symphony begins in the depths, or springs with a bound onto the stage. If the old imbeciles hadnโt discovered only the false significance of Self, we wouldnโt have to now sweep away those millions of skeletons which have been piling up the products of their one-eyed intellect since time immemorial, and claiming themselves to be their authors!
Arthur Rimbaud