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

What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.

Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it.

The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body.

Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.