Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, level, herd, a loathing which fills my soul, and it is in this respect perhaps that I understand martyrdom.

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.

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

A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.

Me and my books in the same apartment, like a gherkin in its vinegar.

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