I am not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself

The written word has taught me to listen to the human voice, much as the great unchanging statues have taught me to appreciate bodily motions.

Translating is writing.

Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.

He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or to his genius, following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself.

Everything is too far away in the past, or mysteriously too close.