When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths of Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés moves us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion. . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime.

People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged.

That day, I began to be incredulous. Or, rather, I regretted having been credulous. I regretted having allowed myself to be borne away by a passion of the mind. Such is credulity.

It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

National identity is the last bastion of the dispossessed. But the meaning of identity is now based on hatred, on hatred for those who are not the same.

When the poet is in love, he is incapable of writing poetry on love. He has to write when he remembers that he was in love.