I think it's all to the good that a writer shouldn't be too famous. Because, in a country where a writer may be famous, he may be pandering to the mob, celebrity and so on.

A . . . poet is a discoverer rather than an inventor.

I don't think there's any essential difference, at least for me, between writing poetry and writing prose.

The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men.

He consorted with prostitutes and poets...and with persons even worse.

What a writer wants to do is not what he does.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.