A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.

Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue!

Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.

Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

The job of the poet (a job which can't be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.