No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.

Inspiration comes of working every day.

I have to confess that I had gambled on my soul and lost it with heroic insouciance and lightness of touch. The soul is so impalpable, so often useless, and sometimes such a nuisance, that I felt no more emotion on losing it than if, on a stroll, I had mislaid my visiting card.

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.

This industry [photography], by invading the territories of art, has become art's most mortal enemy.

There is a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.