A child sees everything in a sense of newness - he is always drunk. Genius is nothing but childhood re-attained at will.

Hashish will be, indeed, for the impressions and familiar thoughts of the man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no more than a mirror.

There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.

Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?

Above my cradle loomed the bookcase where/ Latin ashes and the dust of Greece/ mingled with novels, history, and verse/ in one dark Babel. I was folio-high/ when I first heard the voices.

In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times.

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before he is defeated.