The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.

The artist must know how far to go too far.

History is a combination of reality and lies. The reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes the truth.

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

The hot hall full of painted girls and American soldiers is a saloon in some Western film. This noise drenches us, wakens us to do something else. It shows us a lost path.

Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.