In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

There is no point in being overwhelmed by the appalling total of human sufferring; such a total does not exist. Neither poverty nor pain is accumulable.

I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets.

Best thing to happen for a poet. A fine death, no? An impressive death.

Had I to give advice to writers (and I do not think they need it, because everyone has to find out things for himself), I would tell them simply this; I would ask them to tamper as little as they can with their own work. I do not think tinkering does any good. The moment comes when one has found out what one can do - when one has found one's natural voice, one's rhythm. Then I do not think that slight emendations should prove useful.

I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.