Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.

To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.

Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl.

I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It's not very funny, but it's sincere. My commitment is to sincerity.

I am glad to have found a readership, but one can’t write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. A writer creates an imaginary world that he transmits to others.

I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.