Very few people realise that sex is a psychic and not a physical act. The clumsy coupling of human beings is simply a biological paraphrase of this truth - a primitive method of introducing minds to each other, engaging them. But most people are stuck in the physical aspect, unaware of the poetic rapport which it so clumsily tries to teach.

There is no pain compared to that of loving a woman who makes her body accessible to one and yet who is incapable of delivering her true self -- because she does not know where to find it.

All artists today are expected to cultivate a little fashionable unhappiness.

Comedians are the nearest to suicide.

Science is the poetry of the intellect and poetry the science of the heart's affections.

A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.

Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.