Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.

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

When we awake it is the animal, the plant, that thinks in us. Primitive thought without the least disguise. We see a terrible universe, because we see clearly. A little later, intelligence introduces its impeding contrivances. It brings the little toys which man invents in order to hide the void. It is then that we think we are seeing clearly. We attribute our uneasiness to the miasmas of the brain as it passes from dream to reality.

If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism. The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.

The audience bursts into laughter. With the tragic gag I don't expect the audience to laugh (if they do, I have failed) but I expect a black silence from them that is almost as violent: as laughter.

The cinema is death at work.