Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the strength of its style, just as the earth, suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support.

Melancholy is a sensual pleasure that is deliberately provoked. How many people shut themselves away to make themselves sadder, or to weep beside a stream, or choose a sentimental book! We are constantly building and unbuilding ourselves.

The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.

She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep.

For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.