I became bold because I had absolutely nothing to lose: neither honors, nor earnings, nor friends. I had to find myself anew and rely only on myself, because I could rely on no one else. My form is my solitude.

To contradict, even in little matters, is the supreme necessity of art today.

Any artist who respects himself ought to be, and in every sense of the term, an emigre.

Wherever I see some mystique, be it virtue or family, faith or fatherland, there I must commit some indecent act.

You, oh mature ones, keep company solely with other mature ones, and your maturity is so mature that it can only chum up with maturity!

Against the background of general freakishness the case of my particular freakishness was lost.

Great poetry must be admired, because it is great and because it is poetry, and so we admire it.