The poet doesn't invent. He listens

True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing

After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly

Life is a horizontal fall

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head

I believe in luck how else can you explain the success of those you dislike

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature

I am a lie who always speaks the truth

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends